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THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 



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rHOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

A CRITICAL STUDY 

BY 

A, Martin freeman 



NEW YORK 

MITCHELL KENNERLEY 

MOMXI. 



V 



<l 



Q,pa 






Printed at 

The Westminster Press 

41 lA Harrow Road, 

London, W 



TO 
H. A. F. 



NOTE 

My thanks are due to Professor Dowden for 
permission to make use of biographical matter 
contained in his " Life of Shelley " ; and to 
Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Truhner and Co., 
Ltd,, for confirming the permission. 

There is in the British Museum a privately 
issued Thesis by Dr, A, B, Young, entitled " The 
Life and Novels of T, L, Peacock,^^ This work 
contains a good deal of collected information, and 
has a considerable space devoted to Peacock'' s 
political and literary criticisms. Although I 
have made little or no use of this work, not having 
read it until my chapters IV,, V, and VI, were, 
except for excisions for the sake of shortening, in 
their present form, it is only fair to Dr, Young, 
especially as his book has never been published in 
England, to state here that he was the first to write 
anything like a complete study of Peacock from 
this point of view. 

A. M. F. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

EARLY INFLUENCES 13 

YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 32 

PSUEDO-CLASSICISM 56 

BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 109 

SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 149 

SHELLEY IN ITALY 194 

THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 226 

THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 275 

GRYLL GRANGE 315 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

IN one of his letters from Italy, Shelley 
mentions an early belief of his own, 
that anything which a man does, 
speaks, thinks, suffers, may be interpreted 
as an allegory or image of his whole life. 
The investigation of this theory with regard to 
an entertaining biography might conceivably 
lead to interesting developments and modifica- 
tions, and these, in addition to the many in- 
stances that might be found of its absolute 
truth, would doubtless afford an amusing if not 
overwhelmingly instructive study. Its appli- 
cation to the life of Thomas Love Peacock is 
not possible except in a very fragmentary 
manner. The published records are so broken, 
and the references of his contemporaries are of 
such disparate interest and of such varying 
degrees of biographical importance, that it is 
difficult to see his life as a whole or to recognise 
in it any well-developed scheme. In tracing 
the course of the Thames, on that romantic 

13 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

expedition which he made in order to provide 
himself with material for his anti-Romantic 
poem, his only difficulty was in locating exactly 
its source. That once accomplished, the towing- 
path and the barge brought him easily and 
inevitably to the sea. But the course of his 
life is that of a remote and lonely stream, 
approachable only at certain points, the greater 
part of its channel being hidden in impenetrable 
mystery. 

His career, unlike those of many men of 
his time, with whom he was acquainted at 
various periods, was what is called uneventful. 
He had not the popularity as an author nor the 
fondness for " society " which might bring him 
into newspaper notoriety, or cause him to figure 
prominently in the journals of the more notable 
men of his day. His favourite pursuits were 
solitary ; the occupation of his mature years 
made him almost completely anonymous ; his 
wanderings took him, generally alone, to remote 
parts of England or Wales, and were not diver- 
sified even by that most fashionable of the 
amusements of the day, a visit to the Continent. 
He was neither a modish nor a voluminous 
writer, and was not constantly called upon by 
publishers for reminiscences or articles of a 
personal nature for the magazines. To write a 

14 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

full and satisfactory account of his life would 
consequently only be practicable if there were 
a large mass of detailed material available ; 
and it would then resolve itself into a chronicle 
of study and rambling, of boating and walking, 
of conversations and theorising, of work and of 
gradually accumulated knowledge and widening 
interests. It would slowly unfold the intimate 
and reflective progress of a personality so pro- 
nounced that the slightest anecdote seems to 
add something vital to its effect, of a writer of 
such intense individuality that his shortest 
fragments of prose possess a tantalising interest, 
and whose thoughts and fancies could never 
fail to charm. But in the extreme scarcity 
(so far as is yet known) of letters or journals, 
it seems highly improbable that such an account 
can ever be put together. Our knowledge of 
his life is limited to a number of scattered 
unconnected facts. His writings are not con- 
tinuous. There are long intervals of time be- 
tween many of his books — years during which 
his commentary on public affairs is silent and 
the course of his life disappears like a sunken 
stream. Young men who read Crotchet Castle^ 
the sixth of his novels, married and had children, 
and the children grew up to manhood and read 
Gryll Grange, his seventh and last, when their 

15 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

fathers had forgotten its author. Between the 
publication of his first and last poem sixty years 
had elapsed ; but the records of his existence 
would, if placed in close juxtaposition, hardly 
fill out ten years. 

Yet as we piece together the scanty and in- 
sufl&cient notices, Shelley's discarded theory 
hovers near and obtrudes itself at intervals, 
now calling for confirmation, now emphasising 
a remarkable contradiction, and anon arresting 
the attention at some hardly noticeable cir- 
cumstance, asking whether or no this is a true 
instance of the manifestation of the principle. 
There is a strange congruence, a harmonious 
cohesion in some of his otherwise unrelated 
actions, utterances and aspirations, as though 
Nature and Fortune, making use of him some- 
times as a confederate and at other moments as 
an unconscious agent, were striving to impart 
to his life, with its experiences and accomplish- 
ments, that unity which he as a philosopher 
would have approved, and which seems so 
signally lacking in the careers of most men, 
whose history more often presents a uniformity 
of aimlessness. 

For the purposes of our criticism we shall 
have to notice the influences of his early years, 
so far as they can be traced, and in so far as 

16 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

they have any recognisable bearing on his 
intellectual and artistic development ; his first 
productive period, when he attempted to storm 
the citadel of Fame with volumes of antiquated 
descriptive and philosophical verse ; the years 
passed in contact with Shelley, and his first four 
satires ; the years following, when he wrote his 
three romances and the conversation-novel of 
his maturity. An occasional glance is all that 
can be obtained of the long succeeding portion 
of his life, sparsely scattered over with some 
interesting reviews, some charming articles of 
more personal interest, including his recollec- 
tions of Shelley, and culminating in the con- 
versation-romance-epilogue of his old age. 

It is at least noticeable that, being the son of 
a merchant who had married into a naval 
family, he developed great aptitude both for 
business and navigation. To that extent his 
nativity seems to lend support to the theory of 
unity and plan in his life. But there imme- 
diately arises to combat this presumption a 
consideration, which appears at first sight 
seriously to invahdate it. His first employ- 
ment was in a merchant's office, his second on 
board a man-of-war: both were very soon 
abandoned as hopelessly unsuitable. His final 
and permanent appointment however may lead 

17 B 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

again to the original point of view. The East 
India House was the sphere in which he found 
a compromise between a common clerkship and 
a government appointment ; while the work of 
his department, chiefly administrative and 
financial, afforded a good opportunity for the 
exercise of a union of the aristocratic and 
commercial quaUties. But we have skipped 
thirty-four years . . . 

His father was Samuel Peacock, a glass- 
merchant, carrying on his trade in St. Paul's 
Churchyard. Nothing of any interest seems 
to be known of his family or himself. A frag- 
ment of an old day-book proves that he was in 
business in the year 1768. The birth of his 
only child took place at Weymouth in October, 
1785, but as he had him baptised in London 
at the end of the year, it is to be presumed that 
he was still in business at that date. He died 
about three years afterwards. His wife was 
Sarah, daughter of Thomas Love, a naval 
captain. She survived her husband thirty-five 
years, and was her son's best and most intimate 
friend. " He loved her," says the writer of an 
article in the North British Review, *' with a 
love beyond that of common natures. He 
consulted her judgment in all that he wrote, 
and some time after her death he remarked to 

18 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

a friend that he had never written with any zeal 
since." Her death does in truth seem to have 
affected him more than any other event of his 
life. For more than twenty-five years from 
that date he wrote nothing longer than a 
magazine article. Many of the fragmentary 
beginnings of satires and romances among his 
manuscripts belong to that period, and it was 
very likely owing to the want of her encourage- 
ment that they were left unfinished. 

After the death of her husband, Mrs. Peacock 
and her son lived with her father in Chertsey. 
At this house the boy no doubt heard daily 
talk of the sea, not only from his grandfather, 
but from his mother as well, whose brother and 
nephew were also in the navy. Letters from 
them would afford the most interesting and 
welcome topic of conversation, and give rise 
to questions by his mother and explanations 
by his grandfather, constituting his early 
education in maritime affairs. Thus the en- 
vironment of his early years was added to the 
influence of heredity to produce in him a keen 
interest in every form of seamanship, a passion 
for which he provided an outlet at all times 
of his life, taking advantage of whatever scope 
and vehicle chance threw in his path. 

In this way the first impressions of childhood 

19 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

may safely be said to have had considerable 
influence on the tastes and abilities developed 
in his maturer years. But it is possible also 
that at this impressionable age he made his first 
acquaintance with a number of fanciful state- 
ments, passing current as facts of natural 
history, which were subsequently forced upon 
his attention by a curious fatality, until he 
exalted them to their proper sphere in imagina- 
tive literature and embodied them in a satirical 
romance. If we are to believe the authorities, 
he may be said to have begun to collect material 
for his novels at the age of three. For we are 
told that his grandfather was the original of 
Captain Hawltaught in Melincourt If there 
were no motive for this character-sketch, other 
than the desire to perpetuate the memory of 
his jovial relative, certainly no writer ever made 
less use of what must have been unusually rich 
opportunities. The brief account of Captain 
Hawltaught is vivid enough, but truly remark- 
able as an in memoriam. It is related that " a 
dangerous wound compelled the old captain to 
renounce his darling element, and lay himself 
up in ordinary for the rest of his days. He 
retired on his haK-pay and the produce of his 
prize-money to a little village in the west of 
England, where he employed himself very 

20 



I 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

assiduously in planting cabbages and watching 
the changes of the wind." He was *' fond of 
his bottle of wine after dinner and his glass of 
grog at night," and would sit up haK the night 
with Sir Oran, over a flowing bowl, singing 
Rule Britannia, True Courage, or Tom Tough. 
He habitually declared "he was sure every enemy 
to wine and grog must have clapped down the 
hatches of his conscience on some secret vil- 
lainy, which he feared the good liquor would 
pipe ahoy, and he usually concluded by striking 
up Nothing like Grog, Saturday Night, or Swing 
the Flowing Bowl, his friend Oran's horn ringing 
in sympathetic symphony. The old captain 
used to say that grog was the ehxir of life : but 
it did not prove so to him ; for one night he 
tossed off his last bumper, sang his last stave, 
and heard the last flourish of his Oran's horn." 
The first sentences of the description are ap- 
plicable to a certain extent to grandfather Love 
who, as master of H.M.S. Prothee, had lost a leg 
in an action against the French under Rodney 
in 1782. He could no doubt be said with 
perfect correctness to be living at Chertsey 
*' on his half -pay and the produce of his prize- 
money." But there were of course scores of 
retired sailors similarly situated, to whom the 
description would be equally applicable. Char- 

21 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

acterisation is entirely restricted to the account 
of his convivial habits. At that time, over a 
hundred years ago, these were only considered^ 
reprehensible by a small minority of people ; | 
still, it is hardly to be imagined that Peacock 
put his grandfather into one of his books for 
the sole purpose of commemorating his habitual 
intemperance. Moreover, his attachment to 
the bottle, like the circumstances of his service 
and retirement, was not singular enough to 
distinguish him from a multitude of others. 
The clue then to the identity of Captain Love 
and Captain Hawltaught, if it exist, must be 
sought in the only remaining piece of information 
which is given regarding the latter, namely, 
that it was he who introduced Sir Oran to Mr. 
Forester. Is this a truthful fable, a mystical 
acknowledgment of the author's early-contracted 
debt ? Remembering that Mr. Forester repre- 
sents Peacock, and taking Captain Hawltaught 
as meaning Captain Love, it is not difficult to 
see in the two pages of Melincourt in which the' 
old gentleman appears, an indirect statement! 
of the fact that the young Thomas Love Peacock 
was made acquainted by his grandfather, not 
with Sir Oran in person, but with the sailors' tales 
and legends about him. Such stories, though 
possibly more lively in detail, could not easily 

22 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

have been more romantic in substance than what 
was related of him in the philosophical literature 
of the day. Dismissed as idle tales, they would 
have been vividly recalled by the learned books 
which were read later on. Proof is of course 
impossible, but such a reference to his first 
authority was quite in Peacock's manner. In 
Melincourt almost every character can be ac- 
counted for, not only for his part in the story 
but for an extraneous reason as well. This 
supposition would explain the introduction of 
Captain Hawltaught. He is not necessary 
either to the story, the theories, or the satire, 
and is brought in merely because he first in- 
troduced Mr. Oran (as he then was) to civilisation 
and to Mr. Forester. 

With the arrival of Peacock's school-days 
conjecture happily gives way to evidence. The 
first and most interesting is contained in Some 
Recollections of Childhood : by the Author of 
" Headlong HalV Written when he was fifty, 
and published in the first number of Bentley's 
Miscellany f they record some of his impressions 
at the beginning of this second period of his life. 
Together with the descriptive sketch called 
The Last Day of Windsor Forest and one or two 
small poems, they are remarkable among the 
mass of his finished writings as being ostensibly 

23 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

autobiographical, and approaching more nearly 
to personal and intimate utterance than any- 
thing else intended by him to reach the public. 
And even this description of them needs qualify- 
ing. It would indeed be surprising if a man so 
habitually and consistently ironical, so completely 
restrained and reserved whenever he is not 
indulging in pure buffoonery or objective des- 
cription, should be found writing a series of 
confessions for the amusement of the critics or 
even for the delectation of posterity. These 
are not so much recollections of his own childhood 
as childish memories of other people and external 
things. They must be read as strictly true to 
fact, for there is no reason to doubt the author's 
intention ; and they would lose all point if they 
were fabricated ; such is their brevity and, in 
spite of the great charm of style, their incoherence. 
Yet they are by no means rich in actual informa- 
tion, and are chiefly interesting because they 
are reminiscent, in almost every line, of his 
novels. He has kept his own personality as 
much as possible in the backgroimd, and has 
given us a minute chapter, a paragraph, con- 
cerning some of those early impressions which 
were to be reproduced in his writings. The 
name of the place in which the scene is laid. 
The Abbey House, brings the reader imme- 

24 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

diately into the familiar atmosphere, and another 
characteristic touch is added by the description 
of the house and gardens. The article is through- 
out an excellent example of his style, and were 
it not for the use of the first personal pronoun 
might well be the introductory chapter of a book 
like Headlong Hall or Nightmare Abbey. 

The house had been built near the site of one 
of those ancient abbevs, " whose demesnes the 
pure devotion of Henry VIIL transferred from 
their former occupants (who foolishly imagined 
they had a right to them, though they lacked 
the might which is its essence) to the members of 
his convenient parliamentary chorus, who helped 
him to run down his Scotch octave of wives." 
The ruins were left in that state which most 
admirably fitted them to become the subject of 
a description by Peacock. With the exception 
of a gateway and a piece of wall, the only remains 
were those of the fishponds, ** a kind of pisca- 
torial panopticon, where all approved varieties 
of freshwater fish had been classified, each in 
its own pond, and kept in good order, clean and 
fat, for the mortification of the flesh of the 
monastic brotherhood on fast days." 

Though not so large as most of the country 
mansions at which the entertainments and 
symposia of the novels take place, the house was 

25 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

sufficiently dignified to have " a pair of massy 
iron gates, which gave entrance to a circular 
gravel road, encompassing a large smooth lawn 
with a sundial in the centre," a broad flight of 
stone steps, a ponderous portal, and a great 
antique hall. This contained a recess with a 
porter's chair and was paved with chequered 
black and white marble ; it gave access to the 
principal rooms, the servants' wing and the 
great staircase. Among other notable features 
of the large old-fashioned gardens were two 
groves of trees with a wide glade between them, 
running from a point opposite the garden steps 
at the back of the house to the limit of the 
property, and thus affording a view of the open 
country beyond. The darker of the groves was 
naturally mysterious, and one evening seemed 
on the point of yielding up some of its secrets, 
or at least calHng attention to their existence. 
Peacock, aged seven years, was enraptured to be 
the discoverer of the fact that the grove was 
haunted. Such a possibility had often been 
discussed, but now at last he had seen the ghost. 
He immediately communicated the news, which 
was treated with becoming seriousness. The 
whole household assembled, and proceeded in a 
body to investigate the scene of the apparition. 
The result was sadly disillusioning. The grove 

26 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

had not spoken, or if it had, it was in a frivolous 
and unworthy manner. A tall blossoming lily, 
growing on the outskirts of the trees, was gently 
swaying to and fro in the wind, so that from the 
point where the child had stood it was alternately 
visible and hidden, 

Besides this incident, only two others are 
recorded, and of these Peacock himself was only 
concerned directly with one. The first is, that 
he once wrenched away from the nursery maid 
the " garden carriage," containing the baby, 
and " set off at full speed ; and had not run 
many yards before I overturned the carriage 
and rolled out the little girl. The child cried 
like Alice Fell, and would not be pacified. 
Luckily she ran to her sister, who let me off 
with an admonition and the exaction of a 
promise never to meddle again with the child's 
carriage." The second, more sober and more 
shadowy, is his successful intercession for 
Charles, the son of the house, who had been 
confined to his room in disgrace for some mis- 
demeanour towards an elderly relative, to whose 
authority he had a rooted objection. " I found 
him in his chamber sitting by the fire with a 
pile of ghostly tales, and an accumulation of lead 
which he was casting into dumps in a mould. . . . 
He was determined not to make any submission, 

27 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

and his captivity was likely to last till the end 
of his holidays." For some reason this scene 
made a deep and lasting impression on Peacock. 
He says that in later life he could never hear of 
any one being " in the dumps " without having 
it vividly recalled to his memory ; and when 
he first read the Hnes in Don Juan : 

I pass my evenings in long galleries solely, 
And that's the reason I'm so melancholy, 

he was immediately transported in thought 
to this room, at the end of a long corridor, of 
his schoolfellow's captivity. 

The grown-ups of the establishment had none 
of the salient peculiarities that might have 
tempted Peacock to enter upon a detailed 
description of them. They were old-fashioned 
people hving an exceedingly quiet and retired 
life, and as such they receive his warm appro- 
bation. The mother and eldest daughter pos- 
sessed " all the soHd qualities which were con- 
sidered female virtues in the dark ages," and 
seldom left the grounds except to go to church 
and to take their daily drive. The daughter 
played the harpsichord and made exquisite 
preserves. Peacock enjoyed listening to her 
music, but often incurred her mild displeasure 
by " playing the bells " upon the instrument so 
vigorously as to put it out of tune. The pre- 

28 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

serves were in his eyes the brightest ornaments 
of the supper table, of which he speaks in tender 
and respectful tones. 

Such is the information which he has given us 
about his childhood, an account in which as 
many material facts are suppressed as could 
possibly be dispensed with. We leam from a 
manuscript fragment that the abbey was that 
of Chertsey. In the published Eecollections 
he merely says that it was situated near " a 
country town " where many of his earUest days 
were passed. He makes no mention of his own 
home. He does not even divulge the name of 
the family who inhabited The Abbey House. 
Yet this little sketch is far from neghgible as a 
biographical document, since, in addition to its 
intrinsic charm, it possesses a great interest in 
statfiding in a distinct and important relation to 
his novels. The atmosphere of the house and 
grounds, as he has managed to convey it in the 
few lines devoted to them, is that of the mansions 
of his fiction, and it cannot be called vague or 
undistinguished. The memory of the days 
which he spent there must have been constantly 
with him. The spaciousness and profusion of 
the estabUshment must have clung to his fancy 
and made no uncertain appeal to him when he 
was working in a city office, and during the 

29 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

years of comparative poverty which he passed 
through as a young man. It is not to be wondered 
at that the scene of so many of his stories 
should be located in similar mansions. They 
were but the castles in Spain wherein he indulged 
his tastes for good living and ingenious con- 
versation. It is of course true that a large and 
hospitable country house provided the most 
obvious and easy setting for stories such as his. 
Caring Uttle or nothing for preliminaries, he is 
only anxious to bring together, with as short a 
delay as possible, his company of cranks and 
fools and scholars, and make them talk and 
dance, perform their antics and display their 
incongruous peculiarities, for his own amuse- 
ment and that of his readers. Yet its con- 
venience as a background would in itself be 
inadequate to account for the amount of atten- 
tion devoted to the country house in most of 
his tales. In his books, superfluous description 
may almost be said not to exist. There are a 
few passages of terse though enthusiastic des- 
cription of natural scenery, though this is often 
in immediate connection with the situation of 
the house : personal appearance and dress are 
very sparingly indicated, especially in the earher 
works : towns, villages, inns, and other objects, 
appearing but as items of travel or discussion, 

30 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

receive no individual treatment whatever. But 
the houses — Redrose Abbey, Melincourt Castle, 
Nightmare Abbey and the rest — are, if not 
elaborately, yet carefully and lovingly described, 
and their treatment gives to his books an at- 
mosphere which they would otherwise lack, 
and which is moreover that of this house of his 
early memories. This is only one instance of 
the homogeneousness of his writings, and their 
close correspondence with his own experience. 
Charles, comforting himself in his isolated room 
with ghost stories and leaden dumps, might be 
a youthful study of vScythrop in his tower, 
surrounded with weird novels and mysterious 
appliances : the gardens, with their groves and 
large old-fashioned flowers, liHes, hollyhocks, 
sunflowers, seem to challenge the criticism of 
Mr. Milestone : the simple and orderly life of 
the inmates of The Abbey House invokes the 
blessing of the Reverend Dr. Opimian. 



31 



II 

YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 

THE Recollections of Childhood refer to 
the beginning of Peacock's school life. 
From this time to about the end of 
his thirteenth year he was at a boarding 
school at Englefield Green, kept by a man whose 
name is variously given as Dicks and Wicks. 
He is said to have been proud of his pupil, 
while Peacock in turn speaks highly of him. 
Their mutual respect was founded on something 
broader than proficiency in Latin grammar. 
Some of those who knew Peacock assert that 
in spite of his wide reading he was never an 
exact scholar, and this is precisely the criticism 
which he afterwards made of his master, though 
praising him highly for his enthusiasm and 
sympathy, and for his success in making the 
boys take interest and pleasure in what he taught 
them. The latter are after all the most vital 
and valuable quahties of a teacher, and were of 
especial benefit to Peacock, for in the few years 
at Englefield Green he received the only educa- 

32 



YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 

tion which he was ever forced or helped to acquire. 
In that short time, learning itself could hardly 
have been brought within his reach, but the 
love of learning could be and undoubtedly was 
imparted. In his case, encouragement alone 
was needed. His studious turn of mind was 
already declaring itself, and when he had a 
holiday he often preferred to spend it in 
reading by the riverside, showing thus early the 
love of books and the open air, enjoyed if 
possible together, that lasted throughout his 
life. 

Five or six short pieces, letters and copies of 
verses, written before he left school, are in 
existence. The first is perhaps an epitaph, 
dated from the school house and therefore 
presumably for one of the boys. Two longer 
and more ambitious attempts are preserved 
among his manuscripts. A letter in verse to his 
cousin Robert Walrond, then in Madrid, is dated 
Chertsey, September 25th, 1795. Peacock was 
then within a month of his tenth birthday, and 
the letter must have been written towards the 
close of the summer holidays. After protesta- 
tions of friendship and a few items of family 
news, he indulges in a little ornamental writ- 
ing on the subject of his cousin's expected 
return : 

33 c 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Calm when you sail may Neptune keep 
The surgy billows of the deep 
Ah shoxiid old Davi ope his jaw 
And lodge you in his hungry maw ; 
Sorrow pale would fill my breast. 
To loose my friend would loose my rest. 
Let not Aeolus vex the waves, 
Lock'd be the winds in roaring eaves. 

Thirteen years later Mr. Walrond received a 
presentation copy of The Genius of the Thames. 
To us, as possibly to him, this early effort is 
the more entertaining of the two. We can 
imagine that the delight of Mr. Dicks or Wicks 
would not have been unbounded if he had seen 
the line about Aeolus ; but the epistle is no 
mean achievement considered as a self-imposed 
holiday task. It is fifty Hnes in length, and the 
state of the punctuation suggests that some of 
them were written at white heat. 

The second document, written at school from 
one to two years later, is in prose, and contains 
high and serious matter. Though folded in 
the same way as the letter to Madrid, it has no 
address outside. It begins " Dear Sir," and 
ends " I am &c. &c. T. L. P." It was therefore 
probably never intended to be sent by post, and 
may have been a school exercise. Full of 
rhetorical exaggeration, it is still interesting 
as showing that pubhc affairs were already 

34 



YOUTHFUL COIVIPOSITIONS 

beginning to attract the writer, and the subject, 
" the present alarming state of the country/* 
is curiously like that of an essay, now lost and 
perhaps never finished, mentioned in his diary 
some twenty years later, " On the probable 
Result of the Present State of Things." The 
letter was composed in 1796, during the scare 
of a French invasion. " At this time," says the 
child of eleven, *' threatened by a powerful 
and victorious enemy, and bending under a load 
of severe exactions, I take up my pen to give 
you my sentiments." 

The tone marks a sad descent from that of 
the preceding letter. The childish manner has 
disappeared, with the ingenuous communication 
of spontaneous sentiments. In their stead is 
an attempt to reproduce grown-up habits of 
speech and writing in their most absurd aspect. 
Precocity has taken the place of originality. 
The imitative period has commenced. Yet 
such an exhibition of budding political feeling 
and assertive patriotism, of the " God save the 
King and God damn the French " type, may 
well have given great satisfaction to teachers 
and elders, who are often inordinately gratified at 
seeing their charges begin to grow up and become 
like themselves. The preservation of the document 
goes to prove that some one thought highly of it. 

35 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Peacock's childhood was in fact drawing to a 
close, and was to terminate abruptly in a city 
office at an age when boys more favoured by 
fortune are just realising, at a public school, 
that cricket is a very serious thing. The exact 
date of his leaving school and removal to London 
is not known ; but at the beginning of the year 
1800 he is seen to be in the emplojmient of a firm 
in Throgmorton Street, who vouch on their own 
responsibility for his having attained the age of 
foiui^een in the previous October. This phase 
of his life remained unknown or unrecorded 
until a few years ago, when an article in The 
Library brought it to light. A children's maga- 
zine called the Monthly Preceptor, started in 1800, 
ojffered prizes for essays on set subjects ; and 
the first number contains the announcement 
that Master T. L. Peacock is one of the successful 
competitors. 

The subject on which the children were asked 
to write was " Is History or Biography the more 
improving Study ? " The first and second 
prizes were won by boys of fourteen and fifteen 
with essays which, at the present time, would 
prove them monsters of precocity. The fourth 
was awarded to " Master Henry Leigh Hunt, 
aged 15, educated at Christ's Hospital," who 
was presented with Dr. Knox's Essays. In 

36 



YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 

criticising his work the editor remarks that it 
has great merit, and were it not for some " trivial 
marks of haste and incorrectness," would be 
at least on a level with the more successful 
efforts. Peacock also competed, and his at- 
tempt is remarkable on two counts ; for in the 
first place, unlike all the other aspirants of his 
age, he was no longer a schoolboy but " a clerk," 
and secondly, he wrote his essay in verse. It 
was pubUshed " not as a specimen of poetry 
particularly excellent, but as an extraordinary 
effort of genius in a boy of this age." He was 
rewarded with an extra prize, namely Elegant 
Extracts in Verse Epitomized, value five shiUings. 
It is somewhat curious, in the light of subsequent 
history, to read the encouragement given to the 
young authors to proceed in the career upon 
which they have " so respectably " entered. 
But the good editor attached a modest meaning 
to the words, and only intended to convey that 
he hoped they would contribute agam to the 
pages of his paper and win more prizes. 

Peacock's verses call for Httle notice. He 
decides the question of relative merit in favour 
of History, in the lines : 

Like as the morning star, with humble ray, 
Throws a faint glimmer at the dawn of day. 
Soon as the sun begins his beams to shed, 

37 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

He shrinks away to nought and hides his head : 
'Tis thus Biography, whose humblest pace 
Pursues one only through life's eager race. 
Before bright Hist'ry's open, daring ray, 
She dwindles into nought, and shrinks away. 

Their only quality is ambition. They would 
be praiseworthy as the production of a child, 
except that they ought never to have been 
written by any one. They belong to that school 
whose best poet could take up the work of its 
worst, and " correct " it into his own. Perhaps 
a boy who was fourteen in 1800 and fond of 
reading could hardly be expected to write in 
any other style, unless he had been nurtured 
exclusively on Blake and the less polite poems 
of Bums. But they are unfortunately prophetic 
of what was to come, and form a prelude, in an 
exaggerated manner, to the series of poetical 
mistakes by which Peacock attempted to make 
a reputation in his first period of authorship. 

We have no means of knowing how long or 
how seriously he studied the Monthly Preceptor^ ; 
nor is it a question of any consequence. The 
absurd pretention and attempted completeness i 
of the scheme no doubt provoked a revulsion in 
his enthusiasm before he had read many numbers, 
and the memory of this early illusion probably 
added point and bitterness to his ridicule of the 

38 



YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 

** march of intellect " and the spread of education. 
But it may be safely presumed that his ardour 
had not been quenched by the time he came to 
the second article in the first number, inaugurat- 
ing the course of instruction in the Natural 
History of Animals. In this he was supplied 
with a second set of statements, in formal and 
authoritative shape, regarding the structure, 
habits and character of that being who was to 
become the hero of Melincourt. 

Leading off with the divisions of the animal 
kingdom according to the Linnsean system, the 
writer explains that the class Primates includes 
man, the monkey, and the bat. But man, he 
says, will receive special treatment in that part 
of the course devoted to the Manners and 
Customs of Nations ; and after this summary 
clearing of the ground he passes immediately 
to the second genus, the ape or monkey or 
rather, as he significantly expresses it, to the 
most extraordinary species of the ape kind. 
The copper plate illustration shows a shape of 
stately and winning aspect. He is of command- 
ing stature, and chestnut-brown in colour. The 
long hair of his head is accurately parted down 
the centre ; his ears are long and shaped like 
those of a satyr ; his eyebrows are arched, his 
eyes sunken. His grey moustache is trimmed 

39 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

short and neatly twisted up at each extremity, 
and he has a slight fringe of beard under his 
chin. His shoulders are bowed and his coun- 
tenance melancholy. The upper part of his 
body is bare ; but below, his long fur makes him 
a natural and decent pair of trousers, extending 
to his ankle. In his outstretched hand he 
grasps the thickest part of an untrimmed branch 
which he carries as a staff, the other end resting 
on the ground near his feet. This is the true 
blood relation of Sir Oran, who made such a 
sensation in English drawing-rooms some seven- 
teen years later, and was finally chosen to re- 
present the borough of Onevote at Westminster. 
Turning from the illustration to the text. 
Peacock read that the claim of the species to 
be regarded as part of the human race is dis- 
allowed for two reasons : these apes possess an 
extra rib in addition to the twelve of man, and 
they are dumb. Yet the tongue and all the 
vocal organs are perfect. Their hair much more 
resembles that of man than the fur of brutes. 
Moreover " in the palms of his hands are re- 
markable those lines which are usually taken 
notice of in palmistry, and at the tips of his 
fingers, those spiral lines observed in man." 
But of this tall, pensive and attractive being 
the writer speaks with a curiously personal 

40 



J 



YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 

animus and dislike. His characterisation, how- 
ever, though unflattering, is remarkably human. 
" This redoubtable rival of mankind," he writes, 
" is as tall, or taller than a man ; active, strong 
and intrepid, cunning, lascivious and cruel." 
These animals are extremely swdft of foot and 
possessed of extraordinary strength : they build 
huts to live in, use clubs as weapons of offence, 
and make some attempt to bury their dead. But 
it must not be thought, because the Orang has 
so many human qualities, that he is therefore 
human. No : in spite of any resemblance to 
the higher creation, he remains a helpless, 
hopeless beast, under the general ban of God ; 
and, in so far as ability to provide for his own 
comfort and safety is concerned, he is markedly 
inferior to the elephant and the beaver. In fact, 
it has been sagely conjectured that in his natural 
state he goes on all fours, and only learns to 
walk upright by imitation of mankind. 

The discouraging, jealous, goody-goody tone 
of the latter part of the article could contribute 
nothing to the conception of Sir Oran. It was 
wisely discarded and forgotten in the collection 
of material. The third and most compelling 
appeal for immortality from this denizen of the 
confines of humanity reached Peacock when, 
as a grown man, he studied Lord Monboddo's 

41 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Ancient Metaphysics, which remained one of 
his favourite books to the end of his life, and the 
same author's Origin and Progress of Language, 
In these works he found additional matter, 
ampUfying, idealising, humanising the early- 
sketch of his hero, and affording a potent cor- 
rective to the disillusioning tendency of the writer 
in the Monthly Preceptor, With this encourage- 
ment, he made up his mind to enter upon a full 
investigation of the subject (as is shown by the 
list of names and works quoted in the notes to 
Mdincourt) and embody the results of his 
labours in a synthetic study. 

Lord Monboddo is firmly convinced of the 
humanity of the Orang Outangs. He speaks of 
them as " a whole nation," which has been found 
to be, strangely, without the use of speech, 
though they have made some progress with the 
arts of life. They are, he says, further advanced 
than many of the savages found in other parts 
of the world, and even of Europe, inasmuch as 
they invariably walk upright, while many of the 
latter walked on all fours. He gives instances 
of the immense difficulty of teaching the dumb 
to speak, and proceeds : " And this very well 
accounts for what seems so strange at first, that 
those Orang Outangs that have been brought from 
Africa or Asia, and many of those soHtary 

42 



YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 

savages that have been catched in Europe, 
never learned to speak, tho' they had the organs 
of pronunciation as perfect as we : for, as it is 
well known, savages are very indolent, at least 
with respect to any exercise of the mind, and are 
hardly excited to any curiosity or desire of learn- 
ing." He held firmly to his faith ; and when 
eleven years had elapsed from the writing of the 
sentence just quoted, he had collected additional 
evidence to show that the Orang possessed not 
only the faculties already ascribed to him, but was 
capable of using a stick for defence as well as 
for attack, could learn the business of a common 
sailor, could be taught to play on the flute, 
was capable of great attachment to particular 
persons, and was orderly and dignified in 
behaviour, having an intense loathing for the 
habits of restlessness and destruction which are 
characteristic of the monkey. "If," says he, 
" such an Animal is not a Man, I should desire 
to know in what the essence of a Man consists, 
and what it is that distinguishes a Natural Man 
from the Man of Art ? " 

Oranism was now all but complete. The 
French authorities gave a few additional facts, 
interesting in themselves and corroborative, but 
nothing essentially different in quality. A sly 
hit at these writers is contained in the remarks 

43 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

of the Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney on meeting the 
Baronet and hearing his name : " Haut-ton ! 
French extraction, no doubt. And now I come 
to think of it, there is something very French in 
his physiognomy." But the finishing touch 
was brought from the Systema Naturce of Lin*- 
nseus : " He has an upright gait and a hissing 
speech : he believes that the world was created 
for him, and that he will one day rule over it 
again." 

Peacock adopted the character as he found it, 
adding nothing but the suggested identification 
of his hero with the sylvan deities of classical 
antiquity. In the novel this point of view is 
attributed to the " learned mythologist and 
antiquarian " to whom Mr. Forester had intro- 
duced Sir Oran, and who, having reviewed the 
evidence of science and legend, used to remark 
that " he had known many profound philo- 
sophical and mythological systems founded on 
much slighter analogies." Thus Peacock entered 
as the first pioneer into this strange unexploited 
tract of the imagination. 

For how long did Peacock remain in a state of 
servitude in the house of Ludlow, Eraser and 
Company ? The date of his leaving Chertsey for 
London used to be given as 1802, so possibly the 

44 



YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 

time he spent in the city was very brief, ending 
in a temporary return to the country. Or perhaps 
he stayed two years with his employers, and on 
leaving them was joined by his mother in town. 
In any case it was about this date that he began 
to read regularly at the British Museum. This 
is all that is known of him for some time. His 
leisure seems to have been as laborious as most 
men's business. Not content with the classical 
and foreign literature which he could get through 
in the daylight hours at the museum, he would 
often spend the evening with an English book, 
reading aloud to his mother. The following four 
or five years were therefore rich in literary in- 
fluences, uneventful and fortunately unpro- 
ductive. We may imagine him at this time 
studying assiduously during the dark months, 
mastering the classics with a delight that is 
probably unknown to men who have been edu- 
cated at high pressure through the process of 
competing for prizes at school, for scholarships 
at the university, and for classes in the final 
examination. We may also be quite sure that 
he was never perfectly happy, or even tolerably 
at his ease, if the summer were not broken by a 
visit to Chertsey or a walking tour in some 
other part of the country. A few inconsiderable 
copies of verse, composed in 1801 to 1805, have 

45 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

been preserved. He versified the Lord's Prayer, 
a feat which has been performed better and worse, 
both before and after his time ; he made a trans- 
lation of some lines of Guacini ; he wrote to a 
lady *' on her recovery " some stanzas that are 
as carefully fabricated as the drugs which may 
have helped or hindered the event commemorated. 
In the September of 1804, when he was nearly 
nineteen, he composed the first piece showing 
the characteristics of his later manner — The 
Monks of St, Mark, a rollicking ballad in the 
anapaestic measure of Browning's " I sprang to 
the stirrup." Extending to some eighty or 
ninety lines, it is an account of drinking and 
reeling, falling and bawling ghostly brothers, 
and would give complete satisfaction to the most 
furious anti-teetotaller. It is extremely youth- 
ful in tone, and exaggerated in incident ; but it 
is a genuine Peacockian ballad. 

The year 1806 saw the publication of his first 
volume, Palmyra and other Poems, chiefly re- 
markable in being prefaced by a cento out of , 
the works of Shakespeare, '' To Reviewers." • 
This is perhaps the only non- vituperative passage 
ever written by him to or concerning the jour- 
nalists, " trading critics," as he generally called 
them. Some of the tribe were sincerely touched 
by it as an unusually courteous treatment of their 

46 



YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 

profession. To attempt to procure a fair hearing 
by this means seems sufficiently childish and 
ingenuous ; yet it was by no means an uncharac- 
teristic action. Precocious in learning, Peacock 
still grew up slowly in other respects. His genius 
was of a decidedly late blossoming : his taste 
and critical faculty matured gradually. In some 
of the letters written at the age of twenty-two 
or twenty-three he shows a strange delight in a 
pun, in an elementary misuse of language or an 
evident contradiction in logic, such as we should 
rather expect to find in a promising boy of sixteen 
or seventeen. 

The title-poem is a formal ode upon the 
splendour and decadence of Palmyra, the city of 
Syria identified with the Tadmor of the Old 
Testament. The theme is thus conventional 
though recondite — ^not a promising combination 
of qualities. It is hardly necessary to remark 
that the sources of the poem are entirely literary : 
they are suppHed by classical writings. Gibbon's 
history and the accounts of modern explorers, 
and are all quoted, with the author's regular 
scrupulousness in this respect, in full and 
sufficient notes at the back of the book. Thus 
it is easily seen at the outset that none but a 
genius could, out of material of this nature, 
produce a poem giving the effect of personal 

47 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

vision or experience. An effort to do so by 
deliberate means would lead inevitably to that 
vagueness and sentimentality, that forcible- 
feeble exaggeration into which uninspired writers, 
especially of verse, can hardly escape falling 
when trying to appear earnest about what has 
never been a reality to them. It is to the 
credit of Peacock's good sense that he kept clear 
of this pitfall. The opening stanzas dwell, with 
barely suggested description, on the desolation 
of the site : then follows immediately a com- 
memoration of the events that led up to the sub- 
jugation and destruction of the city under 
Aurelian ; and lastly a lament for Palmyra, 
with reflections on the transitorv doom of men, 
nations and cities. The quahties which in part 
redeem the poem from the unreadableness to 
which it seems foredoomed, are a certain dignity 
and restraint of the language and the sincerity 
of the emotion. Though it cannot be said to 
have any great poetical merit, it is saturated 
with Peacock's curiously passionate regret for the 
past. He has been blamed for unreasonably 
obtruding this in some of his later works ; but 
its genuineness is indubitable. This quality 
alone enabled him to strike occasional sparks 
of poetry out of the flinty substance of 
Palmyra. 

48 



YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 

Some readers of Shelley's letters may have had 
the curiosity to turn to the conclusion of this 
poem, to find what Shelley considered the " finest 
piece of poetry " that he had ever read. If 
any have done this, their amazement wiU have 
been at least equal to their trouble, though 
hardly an adequate reward. Shelley was of 
course ver}'- young when he made this statement : 
more than four years were to elapse between the 
date of the letter containing it and the publi- 
cation of Alastor, Moreover in his private cor- 
respondence he wrote hastily, as the mood of 
the moment dictated, and this passage, occur- 
ring in a letter of thanks, was not composed with 
the deliberation that he might have bestowed on 
a criticism intended to be sent forth as his final 
and considered opinion. But, more important 
than all these factors, it was the second edition 
that Shelley read, and this has never been re- 
printed. In this, issued six years after the first 
publication. Palmyra is largely rewritten, and 
the conclusion entirely changed. The second 
termination is of course not the finest piece of 
poetry that Shelley had ever read up to the year 
1812, but it is a distinct improvement on the first. 
It is to be regretted that the reprints all give 
Palmyra in its first form, if only because the 
present arrangement encourages this wrong 

49 D 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

confrontation, and so does injustice both to 
Shelley and to Peacock. 

In the pieces accompanying Palmyra the 
author is seen trying his prentice-hand at other 
recognised poetical themes of the past generation. 
The swain, prepared to die of sentiment because 
his lady refuses to be kind, is missing ; but a 
kindred subject is supphed in the overflowings 
of Maria, who will perish in the snow because 
Henry " hid a demon's soul Beneath an angel's 
beauty." The best of these miscellaneous pieces 
is Fiolfar, King of Norway^ a spirited tale 
founded on Norse legend, telling how Fiolfar 
overcame and slew Yrrodore, who had stolen 
away Nitalpha when he was absent on an 
expedition, and, having discovered his bride, 
broke the spell of the magic sleep in which she 
lay, guarded by the dwarfs. The volume con- 
tains also a few translations and imitations 
from classical, Italian and Ossianic pieces, and 
one or two burlesques, including the light-hearted 
and felicitous Slender^s Love-Elegy, 

Speaking of the pubhcation some years later. 
Peacock says that it may be said to have been 
strangled at birth ; yet two at least of the 
reviewers showed themselves friendlily disposed 
towards it. The Monthly Review for March and 
the Critical Review for February each devoted 

50 



YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 

nearly two pages to notices of the little volume, 
consisting mostly of encouragement. The writers 
of both these are far more markedly than Peacock 
men of the former age. Their chariness of praise 
and jealousy for the preeminence of the older 
writers, their hesitation and uncertainty, make 
them appear in a solemnly ridiculous light. 
Their reasoning is implicit, but not concealed 
by the elegant robe of words. It runs in this 
manner. " Gray was a good poet, and wrote on 
Norse subjects ; here is a young poet who treats 
similar themes, and occasionally reminds us of 
Gray ; therefore he is a good poet, or as near 
good as it is possible for a person of his inferior 
years, and this degenerate age, to be. We will 
encourage him, but cautiously." So the highest 
praise is awarded to him in the sentence : " We 
almost seem to hear the lyre of Gray resounding 
at times in this young writer's verse," followed 
by half a dozen lines from Fiolfar. 

This kind of criticism was probably quite 
acceptable to Peacock, especially when it was 
favourable. Criticism in the modem sense was 
but recently bom. The writers in the smaller 
reviews, who alone noticed his works, would 
not have been so vexatious as to inquire of any 
poet what he had to say. A pleasant passage 
in verse, tolerably smooth and not outraging the 

51 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

canons deducible from the productions of the 
poets who flourished in the age of authority, was 
good poetry. A work which offended them by 
innovation, irregularity, waywardness, in a word, 
by want of resemblance to what they considered 
the best poems that had been or could be written, 
was bad. 

The writer in the Critical Review is weighed 
down by a great anxiety, lest by praising too 
much he should lose some of his dignity. He 
assures the author, to start with, that the cento 
**To Reviewers" has not swayed his critical 
judgment ; at the same time " the volume is 
really so pleasing that we feel inclined to dilate 
upon it beyond the narrow bounds we usually 
prescribe to ourselves on these occasions," 
meaning presumably, in reviewing first attempts. 
He cannot help saying that Maria's Return 
" will at least put modem lyrical poems to the 
blush." He is not really comfortable until he 
falls to reprimanding the author for having 
included " a vulgar Jew song " in the collection. 
" We can assure the author," he writes in a sen- 
tence that should have killed the plural unity of 
reviewers, " that we are not Jews ; but we can 
by no means approve the iUiberality, buffoonery 
and nonsense of this portion of the book." 
The offending poem required the wrath of a 

52 



YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 

ponderous critic to drag it from its natural 

obscurity : 

My fader cried ' clothesh ' trough de shtreetsh 
as he vent. 
Dough he now shleeping under de shtone ish ; 
He made by his bargainsh two hundred per 
shent, 
And dat way he fingered de monish. 

The absurd gravity of the reviewer seems to react 
upon the flippancy of the verses, and the opposi- 
tion of the two produces a humourous situation, 
a more than adequate recompense for the author- 
ship of Levi Moses, 

The springs by which the critical machinery 
was worked are laid bare in no less striking 
fashion by the article in the Monthly Review, 
The number containing the notice of Peacock's 
volume includes also reviews of The Lay of the 
Last Minstrel, of Joanna Baillie's Miscellaneous 
Plays, and of numerous Odes, Poems, Monodies, 
Threnodies, Rhapsodies, Elegies and Tributes 
called forth by the death of Nelson. The Lay 
is treated to a long and flattering notice ; but 
the grievances of the critic are as curious as some 
of his conclusions are startling. The Border 
Minstrelsy is still evidently ranlding in his mind, 
and he goes out of his way to remark " Mr. Scott's 
own compositions are greatly superior to those 
which he has collected and edited with such 

53 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

minuteness of version and luxury of typography." 
The phrase " at a word " calls for his official 
censure, and he declares that buttress^ plinth 
and crypt should be "banished from the dictionary 
of the Muses." He seems to credit Sir Walter, 
or rather to reproach him, with the authorship 
of the hymn Dies Irce, from which he quotes 
two lines, adding that they " would make a 
capital figure in Drunken Barnaby's Journal." 
But the true critical standpoint is manifest in 
all frankness and simplicity in the article on Miss 
BaiUie's plays. The writer's tone is generally 
appreciative ; but he advises the author that, 
to obtain greater success, the fashion of her work 
" instead of attempting ambitious irregularity, 
should be copied from some good old artist. 
It is perhaps impossible to effect more than our 
best dramatic writers have already accomplished, 
let this fair author, then, be contented with 
trying to imitate instead of deviating from 
the most successful efforts of human genius." 

These short extracts will make it plain that 
no one possessed of a modicum of critical faculty 
need have been very seriously disturbed by what 
the Monthly Review might have to say of his 
work. But criticisms in monthly magazines 
have an alarming air of authority ; and it is 
difficult for an author to remain absolutely un- 

54 



YOUTHFUL COMPOSITIONS 

moved by them, however contemptuous he may 
feel. When he opened this number, and saw the 
large space allotted to Scott, BaiUie, Nelson and 
" An Essay on Man, upon principles opposite to 
those of Lord BoUngbroke," it must have given 
no small gratification to the young author to 
read the final dictum of the critic : " Fenced and 
barricaded as Helicon is, a few individuals occa- 
sionally contrive to clamber over the inclosure, 
and to get a sip from the sacred fountain. Mr. 
Peacock appears to be one of this favoured 
minority." As a summary criticism of all 
Peacock's poetical work and an indication of his 
place among the poets, this pronouncement might 
seem reasonable enough to-day. As a judgment 
on his first volume it is excessively sanguine : 
and if we could discuss with the critic his reasons 
for arriving at it we should probably disagree 
with him in every instance, and conclude, that 
if his favourite passages were in fact the best 
in the book, its only destination was the dust- 
heap. 



55 



ni 

PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

FOR the next two years of Peacock's life 
the record is broken, and it is im- 
possible to give much account of them. 
We learn from a letter written at the end 
of this period that immediately on attaining 
his majority he went on one of those long tours 
which were always his chief delight. His own 
words supply the only available facts and the 
only possible comment. " You went," he writes, 
" over the same ground on which I wandered 
alone in the autumn of 1806. You visited 
Dalkeith. Is not the Esk a most delightfid 
stream ? Did you see that enchanting spot 
where the North and South Esk unite ? Did 
you think of the Hues of Sir Walter Scott, * His 
wandering feet . . . And classic Hawthomden ? ' 
Did you visit the banks of the sweet silver Teviot, 
and that most lovely of rivers, the indescribably 
fascinating Tweed ? Did you sit by moonlight 
in the ruins of Melrose ? Did you stand at 
twilight in that romantic wood which overhangs 
the Teviot on the sight of Roxburgh Castle ? " 

56 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

This letter must serve as the chronicle for 1806. 
Some time in this year or in the first half of the 
next he moved back to Chertsey ; and about 
this time, probably before his migration, he 
made the acquaintance of Edward Hookham, 
who with his brother Tliomas carried on in Bond 
Street the publishing business and circulating 
library founded by their father. Hookham 
became one of Peacock's most intimate friends, 
and published all his books with the exception 
of the first edition of Palmyra. Both Shelley 
and Peacock borrowed extensively from the 
library when they were away from London, and 
the meeting between the two was almost certainly 
brought about by their common acquaintance. 
Hookham deserves the gratitude of posterity 
for having preserved a number of letters from 
Peacock which, in addition to their intrinsic 
interest, constitute almost the only evidence for 
about three years of his life. This series, now 
in the British Museum, comprises only a part of 
those in existence. But they are a good selec- 
tion. They throw light on the time Peacock 
spent at sea, in exploring the Thames, and part 
of that passed afterwards in Wales. They cover 
the period from the first project of his poem, 
The Genius of the Thames, to its completion 
and the first notices of it in the press. They 

57 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

thus enable us, as it were, to watch Peacock at 
work, and to learn something of his method of 
composition and his attitude towards hterature. 
Some eight years later we have a similar oppor- 
tunity of looking over his shoulder while he was 
engaged upon an unfinished prose work. 

It is not at all clear how this important 
literary friendship originated ; but from the first 
preserved letter it seems probable that Hookham 
had offered to issue Palmyra in a revised form. 
He can hardly have been induced to make this 
proposal by the reception accorded to the volume 
by the public ; possibly he thought it a work of 
more promise than achievement, and considered 
it advisable to secure the rights of publishing the 
author's work. The letter in question is dated 
from Chertsey, August 3rd, 1807, and shows that 
at that time the acquaintance was still quite 
new, though the two men were not unknown to 
each other. Peacock addresses Hookham as 
*' My dear Sir," and signs himseK " Yours 
sincerely." He begins " I shall avail myself of 
your generous offer, and put my little vessel 
again on the stocks." As this sentence is followed 
by a request for Volney's Voyage en Syrie and 
Montesquieu Sur la Grandeur et Decadence des 
Romains, it is pretty obvious that he refers to 
the rewriting of Palmyra, and is desirous of 

58 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

consulting his authorities afresh. Yet he runs 
on, with no break or paragraph in the writing, 
to say that " the poem " may possibly be 
arranged in four divisions, though perhaps he 
has imdertaken more than he can perform, and 
will be obliged to leave it unfinished. This can 
not refer to Palmyra, but to the contemplated 
poem on the Thames. Such slovenliness and 
ambiguity, even though the meaning would be 
perfectly clear to his correspondent, are exceed- 
ingly unlike Peacock's usual style in letter- 
writing. The explanation is probably to be found 
in the circumstance to which he attributes the 
brevity of the note : "I am writing in a great 
hurry, and after dinner, a time at which I am 
not very fond of flourishing a goose-quill." The 
point is not of great importance, and not very 
clear; but it must be left as it is. We shall 
hear no more of Peacock for another fifteen 
months, when the letter quoted at the beginning 
of this chapter was written. 

During these years, of which so meagre an 
account can be given. Peacock seems to have 
written next to nothing. There is only one 
finished composition which may with great 
probability be assigned to this period. In the 
absence of actual proof, internal evidence points 
to a date not later than the early part of 1808 

59 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

for The Circle of Loda, a romantic drama of 
Norse and Irish chieftains of the heroic age. 
This piece, with his two comedies of contemporary 
life, The Dilettanti and The Three Doctors, re- 
mained unpublished, although beautiful fair 
copies, which would have delighted the printers, 
were made of all of them. They were issued 
last year in a small volume, with a preface by 
Dr. A. B. Young. The Circle of Loda is obviously 
the earliest of the three. The historical foun- 
dation of the play — the feuds between the Irish 
and Norse — is the same as that of Fiolfar, King 
of Norway, and there is a general resemblance 
in the two plots and in their treatment. The 
lyrics, plentifully interspersed throughout the 
play, show Peacock's talent in that direction 
in a very early stage of development, many of 
them recalling such pieces as Romance and The 
Vigils of Fancy, both belonging to 1806. 

Written in blank verse, the dialogue of this 
first play has a great advantage in style and dic- 
tion over the poems of that year ; but this differ- 
ence, great as it is from an artistic point of view, 
is no argument for assigning the composition 
to a later date. It merely tends to show that 
in writing a piece intended to be spoken on the 
stage. Peacock saw the value of simplicity and 
directness of language, which he had not yet 

60 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

recognised to be a necessity in poetry that was 
only to be reaxi. We know, too, that after he 
had written still more simply and unaffectedly, 
in the prose and verse of his other plays and in 
one or two lyrics, he returned to his solemnly 
ornamental manner in the Philosophy of Metan- 
choly, and last of all, attempted poetical suicide 
in the Mythological Ode to the Spirit of Fire. 

The incidents of the stor^^ are, briefly, the 
desertion of Mengala by her husband Hidalvar ; 
his passion for the enchantress Rindane, who 
usurps her place ; Mengala' s escape to her home ; 
her father's expedition to avenge her wrong ; 
the battle ; the death of Rindane ; the meeting 
of Hidalvar and his enemy, the intervention of 
the injured but forgiving wife, and a happy 
ending. The drama is pecuHar among all Pea- 
cock's other works, with the possible exception 
of Bhododaphne, in having its main interest 
centered in the story. The plot is the most satis- 
factory that he ever constructed. It contains 
many dramatic and emotional possibilities ; 
it is coherent and interesting, and in the hands of 
an accomplished playwright might have become 
the vehicle of a weird story of enchantment, 
a psychological study or a drama of passion. 
But unfortunately Peacock was not the writer 
to do justice to the latent qualities of his con- 

61 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

ception. One of the causes of the total un- 
suitability of his play for the stage is its extreme 
shortness. It can hardly contain more than 
850 lines, and out of this total 150 are accounted 
for in the lyrics. It is Httle more than a dramatic 
outHne. The treatment is bare, the scenes are 
brief, the situations are undeveloped. Like all 
his writings it is carefully finished, and there is 
a sincerity and directness in the manner, making 
the reading pleasant and easy. But after turning 
over its forty small pages an impression is left, 
as of a complete history having been breathlessly 
poured into our ears, and leaving us astonished. 
It seems the story of little people, whose day and 
night succeed each other rapidly, whose emotions 
work quickly and have not time to ramify, whose 
speech is terse and limpid, and who have but an 
inkhng of the complications of our hfe, with 
its diverse moods, long hesitations and fateful 
precipitancy. It is compressed drama — drama 
with its activities restricted and its promises 
unfulfilled. 

Much as he loved the theatre. Peacock was 
never to make use of the dramatic form as a 
successful or characteristic medium of expres- 
sion. He was to write better plays than this, 
but in a different style. In his two comedies 
is to be found the beginning of his work as a 

62 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

satirical novelist. The Circle of Loda is a work 
of promise only in so far as he attains in it to 
a large measure of emancipation from his poetical 
trammels. He has genuinely conceived his 
subject, and consequently finds for it a far better 
vestment of expression than he could provide 
for those poems which were the outcome merely 
of reading and a desire to write correct and highly 
polished verse. In an eclectic edition of his 
works, excluding the mistaken efforts of his 
early years, which led up to nothing of subsequent 
interest or value, it might be possible to claim a 
place for this Uttle dramatic sketch. For 
although in itself it possesses none of the charac- 
teristic excellences of his satirical writings, and 
is not jewelled with the fine lyrics which en- 
hance the value of his later work, it is the first 
of his plays, and as such may be considered to be 
the very modest fountain-head of his best known 
productions in the art of conversation. 

The stanzas Remember Me and the Circle of 
Loda were all that Peacock had to show for more 
than two years following the pubHcation of 
Palmyra. These compositions could hardly 
have satisfied other people that he was making 
the best use of his time. If he made any money 
out of his first volume it must have been swal- 

63 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

lowed up immediately by the Scotch tour. He 
was not leading the life of an author, nor had he 
any remunerative employment. He was by 
no means well off ; but he was undoubtedly 
better contented to Hve without an advance in 
worldly position, at liberty to read and ramble 
at the bidding of his alternating moods, than 
to sacrifice his freedom in exchange for more 
money. Yet towards the autumn of 1808 he 
yielded to pressure on the part of some of his 
friends and accepted the post of under-secretary 
to Sir Hope Popham, then in command of 
H.M.S. Venerable on the Walcheren expedition. 
Family influence no doubt procured him this 
position. It did not take him long to discover 
that the ship was a " floating Inferno " on which 
it was impossible to write poetry or do " anything 
else which is rational." He writes '' I would 
give the whole world now to be at home, and 
devote the whole winter to the writing of a 
comedy." He feels hopelessly out of his element, 
and inveighs in a rather petulant manner against 
the well-meant endeavours of his friends to 
procure advancement for him. England, he 
says, is the modern Carthage ; and the worship 
of gold is grown to such an extent, that people 
cannot imagine any state of well-being uncon- 
nected with wealth. Still, he has to put up with 

64 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

the sad business upon which he has started, at 
any rate for a time. In this strain he unburdens 
his soul to Hookham, who is now no longer 
addressed as " My dear Sir," but " My dear 
Edward." He sends " kindest remembrances 
to Tom " ; by this time he is evidently an 
intimate of the family. Copious supplies of 
literature are ordered from the library, to cheer 
him in his uncongenial surroundings. The 
first batch includes Lewis' Romantic Tales, the 
Romance of the Forest, The Ring and the Well, 
Adelmorn the Outlaw, The Minstrelsy of the 
Scottish Border, and *' something very elegantly 
romantesque in the poetical department, if you 
can find anything of that description which I 
have not yet seen." Thus at the age of twenty- 
two he was saturating himself in that kind of 
literature which a few years later became, and 
remained for a long period, the object of his most 
violent abuse. It is curious, too, to notice how 
in the next sentences of the letter from which 
we are now quoting (February 1809), he inquires 
tenderly after some of the authors whom he was 
very soon to do his best to ridicule and dis- 
credit. " Is another volume of IVIiss Baillie's 
tragedies forthcoming ? Has Gifford under- 
taken to edit Beaumont and Fletcher ? . . . 
What is Walter Scott about ? Is anything 

65 B 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

new expected from the pen of the incomparable 
Southey ? How is poor Campbell ? His lyre 
breathed the very soul of poetry : must it re- 
main unstrung for ever ? " Then come the 
writers whom he had never liked, or who had 
already disappointed him : *' Is Wordsworth 
Bleeping in peace on his bed of mud in the 
profundity of the Bathos, or will he again awake 
to dole out a lyrical ballad ? His last work 
to all appearance has damned him irrecoverably. 
What is the last act of folly of Pratt, Mason, 
Miss Seward, Hayley, or any other of Phillips* 
formidable host of inanity ? " 

In March he writes a letter which cruelly throws 
the light of common day upon his own poetical 
attitude and method of composition. He begins, 
*' I have been very busy with Forsyth's Moral 
Science Slid my own little poem of the Thames, 
which I have just finished, and now send to you 
such as it is." He then proceeds to discuss 
details of publication, and to rail against Carr's 
Scotch Tour, which he had just read. Having 
arrived at this point, he evidently turned over 
the pages of his poem again, and felt sudden 
compunction. He discovered that he had been 
guilty of " a horrible piece of Vandalism " in 
omitting to mention Runnymead and Cooper's 
Hill. He promptly composed passages referring 

66 I 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

to those places and copied them in a second 
post-script, adding, " One or two corrections 
are necessary throughout the poem, with regard 
to the recurrence of epithets." This is how he 
accounted in private for the local inspiration 
under which, in the opening stanzas of the poem, 
he claims to be writing. Yet his thoughts 
were truly with the Thames during the months 
of his hated employment on board the Venerable, 
It is evident that he beUeved, with his friends, 
that if he could have prevailed upon himself to 
stick to his work he would have attained to 
further advancement and profit. But by April, 
1809, having been absent from home a little 
more than six months, he had had more than 
enough of it, and left his ship on the third of that 
month. A note scrawled hastily at Ramsgate 
announces that he had walked there from Deal, 
and intended to proceed next day round the 
North Foreland to Margate, and thence to 
Canterbury. So his first days ashore were spent 
in emphasising his freedom. 

The Genius of the Thames, which he had 
imagined as done with, was to occupy him for 
some time to come. He had not been back at 
Chertsey long before he made up his mind that 
it was to be an extensive poem in two parts, 
and that in order to gather ideas for the accom- 

67 



THOIMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

plishment of the larger design he would trace 
the course of the river from its source to 
Chertsey, " a very decent walk " of a hundred 
and eighty miles. Before starting he suffered 
a temporary disquietude on being told by some 
one that Tom Warton had written a poem on 
the Thames. This must have been an inaccurate 
description of The Triumph of Isis, a blame- 
worthy lucubration connected with the Isis of 
the pedants. By the end of May his arrange- 
ments for the trip were complete. The week-end 
is to be spent with Hookham in visiting Virginia 
Water, a haunt of theirs and a favourite spot 
with Peacock, then and always. " You will 
pass the Sunday with me at the Wheatsheaf," 
he writes, " and early on Monday morning, when 
you set off for London, I shall walk over to 
Slough and mount the rostrum of one of the 
Gloucestershire coaches." 

On June 2nd he is at Cricklade, and for the 
moment at a standstill. He has come in for bad 
weather, with tempests of wind and rain. He 
is shocked that the peasants take no interest in 
the classic river, and cannot inform him which 
of the various streams which come together 
there is the Thames. " They are the most 
perfect set of Vandals I ever met with : in their 
vulgar ideas, the canal is the most interesting 

68 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

object." The parson, from whom correct in- 
formation might possibly be obtained, is away 
on his honeymoon. The difficulty did not 
detain him long. Four days later he has 
attained his object and walked as far as Oxford, 
where he writes a letter giving a foretaste of his 
later style, and so characteristic, that it almost 
seems as if Thames Head, with its unsightly 
machinery, had been placed there in order to 
be discovered by Peacock and to awaken his 
satirical mood : 

Thames Head is a flat spring, in a field about a 
mile from Tarlton, lying close to the bank of the Thames 
and Severn canal. This spring in the summer months 
is totally dry. None of our picturesque tourists appear 
to have asked themselves the question : How is it possible 
that a river which is perpetually flowing can rise from 
a source which is sometimes diy? The infant river in 
Kemble Meadow is never totally dry, and to the soinrce 
by which the stream there is constantly supplied can 
alone belong the honour of giving birth to the Thames. 
But this spring, Thames Head, would never be totally 
dry, were it not for a monstrous piece of machinery 
erected near it, for the purpose of throwing up its water 
into the neighbouring canal. The Thames is about as 
good a subject for a satire as a panegyric. A satirist 
might exclaim : The rapacity of commerce, not content 
with the immense advantages derived from the river in 
a course of nearly three hundred miles, erects a ponderous 
engine on the very place of its nativity, to suck up its 
unboni waters from the bosom of the earth, and pump 
them into a navigable canal ! It were to be wished, after 

69 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

all, that the crime of water-sucking were the worst that 
could be laid to the charge of commercial navigation : 
but we have only to advert to the conduct of the Spanish 
Christians in South America, the English Christians in 
the East Indies, and to the Christians of all nations in 
the south of Africa, to discover the deeper die of its 
blood-sucking atrocities. A panegyrist, on the contrary, 
after expatiating on the benefits of commercial navigation, 
and of that great effort of human ingenuity, the Thames 
and Severn Canal, which ascends the hill, sinks into the 
rallies, and penetrates the bosom of the earth, to unite 
the two noblest rivers of this wealthy, prosperous, happy, 
generous, loyal, patriotic, &c., &c., &;c., kingdom of Eng- 
land, might say : And yet this splendid undertaking would 
be incomplete, through the failure of water in the summer 
months, did not this noble river, this beautiful emblem, 
and powerful instrument of the commercial greatness of 
England, contribute to that greatness even at the moment 
of its birth, by supplying this magnificent chain of 
connection with the means of perpetual utility. 

This is merely an unpublished conversation 
between Mr. Foster and Mr. Escot. 

Before the end of June, Peacock was back in 
Chertsey, and remained there till the end of the 
j^ear, finishing and correcting his poem. He 
promises more letters on the Thames when he 
can spare the time. If these were ever written 
they are not preserved, or not available. They 
would certainly be full of interest, which is more 
than can honestly be said of the poem, the 
nominal cause of the expedition. A valuable 
by-product has been wasted, something analo- 

70 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

gous, though on a smaller scale, to what might 
have been recorded if Drayton had kept a diary 
of his wanderings in search of materials for his 
Polyolbion. 

The Genius of the Thames was a great trouble 
to Peacock. He worried because the second 
part was shorter than the first ; then, because 
he could not find a good subject for an Episode ; 
then he has hit upon a suitable theme in the fall 
of Carthage, to be introduced among " reflec- 
tions on the mutability of Empire," a subject 
which he considers " highly susceptible of poetical 
ornament." He makes up his mind to finish 
the poem, provisionally, without an episode, 
leaving a place where one may or may not be 
inserted. Meanwhile he did not neglect his 
reading, which was as miscellaneous and desul- 
tory as usual. Among the books mentioned 
during these months are the Description of 
Latium by Cornelia Knight, Southey's Joan of 
Ark, Chateaubriand's Atala, Mme. Cotin's 
Matilde, Godwin's Political Justice, Cook On 
Forest Trees, Park's Travels in Africa, the 
Remaiihs of H. Kirhe White, Knight's Progress 
of Civil Society, part of Hume's history, and 
the dissertations of Locke and Bryant. Some 
of these were used for the purpose of manufac- 
turing notes for his poems. Visits to Virginia 

71 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Water were very salutary and refreshing during 
his struggle with the refractory poem and 
the learned authorities. 

In Palmyra and the pieces accompanying it 
Peacock was seen composing on some of the 
favourite themes of the eighteenth century. 
Certain of these had been so commonly and 
regularly treated by the verse-writers that they 
may legitimately be considered as genres. If 
the Riddle, the Rebus, and the Imitation of 
Horace be omitted as unfair instances, there 
still remain a number of classic forms and 
subjects which were repeated from the early 
years of the century, down to the gradual sup- 
pression of the old conventions by the fresher 
and freer spirit of the great poets, whose revo- 
lutionary work is generally dated from the pub- 
lication of Lyrical Ballads, Such well defined 
classes included the Fable, the Ode, the Eclogue, 
the Anacreontic (one of the most depressing as 
a rule), the Elegy, the Inscription for a Grotto 

in Lord '5 Park, the bibHcal paraphrase, the 

Poem in the Manner of Spenser, The Ballad, or | 
Lament, of the Betrayed Maiden was exceedingly 
popular, especially if there was an unwelcome | 
child, which she generally killed. Moreover, 
almost every versifier of the later age wrote 
pieces addressed to definite localities, classifiable 

72 



P8EUD0-CLASSICISM 

as flattering, if the place in question were the seat 
of a friend or patron ; Uterary, if it were near 
the scene of any battle or important event, 
or if any author had lived in or near it ; or finally 
regretful, if it were a mere rural scene, river, 
hill or meadow. The function of the country 
was especially to bring back a poet's mind to 
his lost youth and to receive the facile over- 
flowings of his sentiment on that subject. Not 
gazed up on so grossly, but inwardly contemplated, 
it was useful as a background for the des- 
criptions of the ideal existence w^hich the poet 
would desire to lead, alone with his charmer ; 
an existence satisfactorily employed by the 
elegant reading and walking indulged in by the 
gentleman, and for the lady, by the pure and 
blameless occupations of knitting and milking. 
It was also fashionable to write verses claiming 
to be " in the Eastern manner," or assuming 
great familiarity with eastern, northern or 
classical mythology. 

Judged by its table of contents. Palmyra 
cannot be said to show any serious divergence 
from the writings of the previous age. Nor 
does an examination of the poems reveal much 
originality in the treatment of the old themes. 
A prolonged absence and complete change in 
habits and occupation, occurring as the}' did 

73 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

during two of the most impressionable years of | 
a man's life, between the ages of twenty-one 
and twenty-three, might have been expected to 
leave remarkable and important traces in his 
writings immediately after the break in their 
continuity. Yet it is unlikely that any reader, 
not biassed by knowledge of the facts, would be 
able to detect any such influence at work in the 
Genius of the Thames, More ambitious and 
considerably more mature, it is yet of the same 
kind as the poems in the early volume. There 
is no alteration, but a distinct advance in style ; 
and this is all there is to suggest that Peacock 
had not passed from Palmyra to the later poem 
as tranquilly as he might lay aside a full sheet 
and take up a new one. It is on one of the old 
familiar themes, but on a much larger scale 
than anything he had attempted before. 

His direct predecessors were illustrious, and 
the celebrity of their work, with the many imi- 
tations of it, had long caused these poems of 
locality to be regarded as a regular class by 
themselves among possible " poetical subjects." 
Definition would be difficult ; but we may per- 
haps adequately describe the Poem of Locality 
as a composition primarily descriptive, having 
for its subject some one spot, region or natural 
feature. It might be of almost any length, 

74 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

according to the extent and spaciousness of the 
chosen subject, the minuteness with which it 
was conceived at the time of writing, and the 
more or less latitude in the treatment. A 
sonnet, for instance, to the Thames at London 
will contain one thought, a prayer " for the safe 
Passage of his Mistress " ; Spenser's Prothala- 
mion takes in a long stretch of two rivers and 
contains elaborate descriptions. Beaumont's 
lines on the Tombs in Westminster Abbey are 
short, pointed and to a single purpose ; so are 
Richard Corbett's Upon Fairford Windows. 
Carew went to Saxham in the winter, and being 
disgusted with the frost and snow, probably 
spent his time by the fire. The outcome is a 
bare little poem, setting forth with a wonderful 
terse exaggeration the hospitality of the house. 
Ben Jonson, writing with a full knowledge and 
personal love of Penshurst, describes the grounds 
in detail, the house and the owners of it, and 
introduces the episode of King James straying 
in the neighbourhood while hunting, and 
" dropping in " unexpectedly. 

It would perhaps be far fetched to reckon the 
author of the Ruins of Time among Peacock's 
precursors in this genus of poetical composition. 
The poem is too purely elegiac, has too little 
description, and too soon leaves its first subject, 

76 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

to be considered as really typical of the kind. 
The true originators of the poem of locality 
in its extended form are Marvel, Denham (un- 
improved by Pope) and Dyer. Marvel roams 
from point to point, from view to view, in the 
estate round Nunappleton House, luxuriating 
in every sight which pleases the eye or suggests 
an image of beauty or a fantastic comparison. 
It is perhaps the most intensely local in feeling 
of all poems in the language, not excepting 
many by Drayton. Even its historical digression, 
dealing entirely with affairs of the place and of 
the family, seems to keep the grounds and build- 
ings always in view : the rest is supplied by the 
poet's passionate delight in the fields and 
streams and woods, and by his fashionable 
attachment to strange symbolism and imagery. 
But MarvelFs poem could only have been 
written for Nunappleton House ; and if it does 
not create the place for us, as a prose writer 
might be able to do by careful and detailed 
description, it yet creates the effect of the place, 
in its power of inspiring emotion, and contains 
unfading pictures of summer scenes in its 
meadows and parks. 

Cooper^ s Hill, leaving aside the question of 
relative poetical excellence, is essentially dif- 
ferent from Nunappleton House, in that the 

76 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

scenery is presumed to be known to the reader, 
and that the places coming within its range are 
famous and historic. It has, too, for its subject 
a much wider sweep of country. Consequently 
there is in it far less description, which is hardly 
attempted in detail at all ; but there are copious 
extracts from the history of the country at large, 
making up, with a little moralising and a des- 
cription, by way of episode, of a hunted stag, 
the substance of the poem. Pope, whose Windsor 
Forest is in imitation of this poem, cannot of 
course be counted as an originator ; but it is 
worth while noting that he put in an extra 
amount of vague and easy patriotism, hardened 
and pointed the descriptions, and added a mytho- 
logical episode. 

It remained for Dyer, both in the Country 
Walk and in the better known Grongar Hill, 
to introduce at least one new element into the 
poem of locality — the beauty of wild nature as 
opposed to that of parks and lawns. Though 
his poems contain a small share of moralising, 
the main subject is the scenery for its own sake, 
and not for the sake of personal associations or 
historic memories connected with it. His con- 
tribution to the genre is a fuller, a more careful 
though compressed description, accompanied by a 
depth of emotion which makes his work poetry : 

77 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Ever charming, ever new. 
When will the landscape tire the view ? 
The fountain's fall, the river's flow. 
The woody valleys, warm and low. 
The windy summit, wild and high. 
Roughly rushing on the sky ! 

And although he began The Ruins of Rome 
with the words " Enough of Grongar ! " they 
only prove that he was unduly lacking in grati- 
tude to its Muse ; for he never surpassed or 
equalled the little poem written a dozen years 
before. The Roman work betrays no local 
feeling, and though it grows to an unwieldy 
length its descriptions are entirely negligible, 
historical reminiscences and moral generalisations 
forming its substance and, if it have any, its soul. 
From this time (1740) onwards, poems on places 
continued to be produced, but without adding 
any fresh quality to the common stock. Its 
popularity increased as its vitahty diminished. 
Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey belongs to an en- 
tirely different class. Though it begins like one 
of these poems and contains a little descriptive 
writing, it is in reality a personal utterance, a 
" confession," and might have been evoked by 
almost any scene so revisited, after an absence 
which had brought change and development to 
the poet's inner life. But Wordsworth had been 
touched by influences which had passed Peacock 

78 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

by. His Geniics of the Thames must be con- 
sidered as a composition in the old style, be- 
longing to this well - defined class. As he 
mockingly said of a reviewer that he had made 
the best possible criticism of a new work, because 
his article contained all the jokes made by his 
predecessors, so this poem might have won praise 
for uniting all the qualities of its kind. 

To the first edition there was prefixed a short 
introductory ode, a fair example of Peacock's 
technical attainments as a verse-writer. Open- 
ing with a lament for the golden age, when dryads 
and genii haunted the countryside, it is in a 
lyrical key throughout, in the tone of Tasso's 
" bell' eta dell' oro ! " These ethereal beings 
vanished when mankind became corrupt and 
introduced war, cruelty and crime to the once 
innocent life of the fields. Peacock was one of 
the last poets to sing of the country in this style. 
He was also one of the best. He returns to the 
country, he tells us, not for any new or mystical 
message it may have for him, but because in its 
most congenial scenes he can catch glimpses of 
the rural deities. His mood in the presence of 
wild nature is always that of Wordsworth's 
" The world is too much with us." He valued 
contemporary progress and civilisation very 
little, and felt that modem men had given their 

79 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

hearts away. It was precisely for sights to make 
him " less forlorn " that he sought soUtude : in 
his love of nature was embodied his love of the 
past. But it was not alone for this that he 
loved the Thames. He loved it too for its own 
beauty and associations, as the river by whose 
banks most of his life had been spent ; its 
neighbourhood was delightful to him, and on its 
waters he never tired of rowing and sailing. 

Unfortunately his poetical ideas and emotional 
experiences were kept in separate and un- 
connected departments of his mind. His poem 
is a deliberate and conventional fabrication on 
a theme which, however dear to him in reality, 
was not permitted to become the source of any 
genuine inspiration. From beginning to end 
it suggests no personal relation to his subject, 
no adequate cause for his lyrism. We will not 
follow him through his amplification of " Oh, 
could I flow like thee " ; his flatterv of the 
stream for the scenery on its banks, for its 
position as chief river of the land of Freedom, 
for the wealth of its port ; his comparison of it 
with other rivers ; his ancient Roman-British 
episode. His reverence for tradition at God- 
stowe, for learning at Oxford, for literature at 
" Twit'nam," shall be taken for granted. " Let 
Fancy lead," he says, when engaged upon the 

80 



PSE UDO-CLASSICISM 

contemplation of the river's course, from its 
spring, where " through brilliant green Thy 
infant waters softly creep," all the way to the 
confluence with the Medway and the " giant- 
sire's embrace." But why, we may not un- 
justifiably ask, should Fancy be called upon to 
lead ? The author had walked it. The only 
answer is, that he was writing a poem of a certain 
type, and a thousand such walks would not be 
allowed to interfere with its form or traditions. 
Experience was to be kept rigidly in its place 
as a modest contributor to the stock of ideas, 
so long as what it had to offer would fit into the 
poetical scheme, and as a useful check on mere 
fine writing. Still it is certainly responsible 
for a few lines occurring at this point, whose 
absence would rob the poem of a piece of true 
observation and delicate description : 

Where Kemble's wood-embosomed spire 

Above the tranquil valley swells ; 
Where wild-flowers wave, in rich attire, 

Their pendent cups and starry bells ; 
In fields, with softest beauty bright. 
Thy crystal sources rise to light ; 
While many an infant Naiad brings 
The treasures of her subject springs : 
And simply flows thy new-bom stream. 

Where brighter verdure streaks the meads. 
Half veiled from the meridian beam 

By spear-grass tall and whispering reeds. 

81 F 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

But it is immediately pocketed again, and there 
follows a passage in which the course of the 
river is considered as emblematic of a lifetime, 
the mystery of the future and the transitoriness 
of possessions and civilisations. The poem 
closes with ancient and honourable reflections 
on the flight of time. 

Six years of new and varied experience were 
to pass before the waiting of Headlong Hall. 
Yet even so, a reader who knew Peacock only 
in his novels might excusably refuse to beheve 
that this was his work. The disillusioned critic 
is here shown as a respectful and gullable 
follower of tradition. His occasional success 
is accidental and owing to qualities which he 
thought negligible and effects which he did not 
aim at producing. 

The second part is of very dubious value to 
the whole. The additional length can hardly be 
counted as a benefit, since it introduces no really 
new idea, and the description of the river, which 
might have brought refreshment, is minimised. 
Indeed the artist's hand trembled more here 
than in the first, and it contains some repetitions, 
both of itself and of earlier passages, which the 
poem, in spite of its length, is too highly polished 
to stand. Isolated passages are readable, but 
not markedly superior to similar patches in the 

82 



I 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

first part, while the general tone is certainly no 
higher. It is significant of the author's poetics 
that some of his best work was the least satis- 
factory to him. The stanza quoted above, for 
instance, describing the infant Thames, was 
actually altered in the second edition, and made 
to resemble more closely than it did before some 
lines in Ariosto, to the manifest loss, not of 
euphonic beauty, his main object, but of fidelity 
and pictorial effect. 

It is difficult at the present day to treat the 
Genius of the Thames with the serious considera- 
tion bestowed upon it by contemporary critics. 
It has an elaborate finish and includes passages 
which if not original are still fresh and genuine. 
But as a whole it was stale before it was written. 
It wiU perhaps be a help toward putting ourselves 
in tone with the time, just a hundred years ago, 
to remember that in this year was produced 
Scott's edition of Dry den. In this work the 
criticism is summed up and rounded off on the 
last page of the Life by the assertion that 
Dryden was the greatest poet from Shakespeare 
to the time of writing. It is probable that in 
a great productive age the artists are always in 
advance of the critics : it is certainly amusing, 
and almost instructive, to observe the attitude 
of the literary gentlemen of 1810 towards the 

83 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

works which they were called upon to appraise. 
The British Critic, in a retrospect of the books 
reviewed during the last half of the year, singles 
out for special praise the Earl of Carysfort, who 
receives a twofold gratulation, first on his high 
poetic achievement, and second " because we are 
happy to know that the private virtues of the 
noble writer are at least equal to his literary 
attainments." In the review of his volume on 
another page it is said that The Bower of Melissa 
" possesses every requisite which ought to charac- 
terise a composition of this kind," and that it 
" will endure a comparison with the best effusions 
of the kind, either from Dryden or Pope." The 
British Critic, therefore, though he has shaken 
our confidence not a little by his extravagance, 
is yet true to his principles of taste in stating 
that The Genius of the Thames " claims very high 
and almost unqualified applause." He blames 
the author's warmth of imagination for leading 
him into some expressions " that will not bear 
the test of sound [^.e. verbal] criticism." There 
were many other reviews of the poem, but all 
the writers approach it in the same attitude. 
Its substance and stjdistic basis are taken for 
granted, and Hnguistic criticism is alone indulged 
in. The author is rebuked for using the epithet 
" thirst-crazed," and he is warned that the phrase 

84 



111 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

" ah, sure " is beneath the dignity of lyrical 
poetry. The one exception is the notice in The 
Satirist, which devotes a whole page to explaining 
that the work is wrongly described in the sub- 
title as lyrical, because it is too long and contains 
an episode. 

Rumours and copies of these criticisms reached 
Peacock in Wales, whither he had betaken himself 
at the beginning of 1810. The first budget, 
he writes, has " almost metamorphosed me into 
a conceited coxcomb : but the leaden mace of 
a reviewer will restore me to my senses." When 
the mace descended he did not like it, though 
he affects indifference. " The Satirist, I perceive, 
has done his best to pulverise me, and has 
brayed me without mercy in his leaden mortar. 
Lord help him ! The fellow's ignorance is almost 
equal to his malevolence." This he proves from 
the reviewer's misuse of a classical quotation, 
and proceeds somewhat grandiloquently : "I 
shall adopt Hume's plan, and never reply in any 
manner to any attack that may be made upon 
me. ... I think silent contempt is in these 
cases the most effectual weapon." Meanwhile 
the letters from Wales, covering about eight 
months, throw considerable light on this im- 
portant period, whose influences and experiences 
had lasting effects on his life and gave him 

85 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

material for some of the finest portions of his 
fiction. For instance, almost the first name to 
occur is that of Tremadoc, immediately calling 
to mind the embankments, one of them finished 
and the other in process of building at this time, 
the subject of a passage of stately beauty in 
Headlong HalL The Traeth Mawr embankment 
was approaching completion. It had been built 
simultaneously from each end, and only a narrow 
gap remained in the middle. The scene which 
enchanted the three philosophers of his first 
novel was precisely that which Peacock was one 
of the last visitors to see. His interest in the 
subject of embankments being thus awakened, 
he was led to study the tradition of the immdation 
of Gwaelod, which he used as the foundation of 
the first part, really the prologue, of The 
Misfortunes of Elphin. The rugged woodland 
country completely satisfied his prevailing mood. 
He became intimate with it, attached to it ; 
and it is such scenery that he introduces most 
often and with the best effect in his tales. 

In January he has arrived at Maentwrog, 
eight miles from Tremadoc, and has taken the 
only available lodgings. " This is a delightful 
spot," he writes, " enchanting even in the gloom 
of winter : in summer it must be a terrestrial 
paradise. It is a beautiful narrow vale, several 

86 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

miles in length, extending in one direction to the 
sea, and totally embosomed in mountains, the 
sides of which are covered in many parts with 
large woods of oak. M}- sitting-room has a bow- 
window, looking out on a lovely river which 
flows through the vale. In the vicinity are many 
deep glens, along which copious mountain streams 
of inconceivable clearness roar over rocky 
channels, and numerous waterfalls of the most 
romantic character." There were only seven 
houses in the place, which yet boasted a lawyer, 
a doctor and a parson, described as a '' Httle 
dumpy, drunken mountain-goat," and drawn 
upon subsequently for the characters of Dr. 
Gaster and the parsons ^^f Calidore. 

The next letter, written a month later, 
encloses an order for about thirty volumes in 
the five languages that he habitually read, and 
contains a short descriptive passage, aftervvards 
almost reproduced in the rhj^med couplets of 
the Philosophy of Melancholy, and echoed, nearly 
twenty years later, in the third stanza of the 
" Brilliancies of Winter " in the Misfortunes 
of Elphin : " I wish I could find language 
sufficientl}' powerful to convey to you an idea 
of the sublime magnificence of the waterfalls 
in the frost — when the old overhanging oaks 
are spangled with icicles ; the rocks sheeted 

87 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

with frozen foam, formed by the flying spray ; 
and the water that oozes from their sides 
congealed into innumerable pillars of crystal." 
He was looking forward to a visit from Hookham 
at the end of the opera season, and remarks that 
they will then be able to " crack an egg" together, 
" a more philosophical operation than cracking 
a bottle,^ ^ 

This last phrase may appear startling to the 
majority of Peacock's readers, among whom 
there seems to be a general idea that he was 
given to excessive drinking. It may be as well 
to review at this point what little evidence there 
is for the assumption. It is found to rest 
chiefly on the orgies of eating and drinking 
described with such gusto in the novels. The 
reasoning, whether explicit or not, can generally 
be analysed and reduced to the really incoherent 
argument : " How well and how fondly Peacock 
describes bacchanalian scenes ! He must have 
been a rare drinker himself ! " Now it is obvious 
that the same logic would lead to the conclusion 
that Peacock was himself an example of not 
only gluttony and debaucherj^ but of religious 
intolerance and insincerity, political pigheaded- 
ness and quackery, artistic cant, philosophical 
flummery, financial knavery, social jealousy 
and ambition, literary priggishness and dis- 

88 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

honesty, in fact, aU the qualities which furnish 
objectives for his satire : he who ridicules 
drunkards must himself be dnmk. No time 
need be wasted in refuting this argument. Yet 
it is only just to set against it, as an appeal to 
readers who judge wholl}- by the evidence of the 
novels, the consideration tliat most of the char- 
acters with whom Peacock associates his own 
opinions and practice — perhaps all with the 
exception of Dr. Folliott, who, though a personal 
favourite, was yet a member of that profession 
for which Peacock had but scant respect — are 
the soberest members of the party. Again, in 
the fragment of Calidore, the drunkenness and 
gluttony of the Welsh clerg^mien is presented 
as unaccompanied b}^ any redeeming quality. 
And m a strange little poem written on taking 
leave of Wales, and railing at the unenlightened 
society of Merionethshire, such hnes occur as 
''Bacchus reels through all thy fields. Her brand 
fanatic frenzy wields. And ignorance with 
falsehood dwells, And folly shakes her jingling 
beDs," and again " Long as disgusted virtue flies 
From folly, drunkenness and Ues : Long as 
insulted science shuns Tlie steps of thy degraded 
sons." In these lines, written in the spirit of 
Herrick's Dean Bourn Farewell, and other 
verses similarly reprobating the Devonshire 

89 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

people, Peacock is speaking directly and simply, 
and not masking his sentiments in ironic form. 
He here shows that he considers the conduct 
of the parsons of Calidore and other devotees of 
the bottle to be as disgusting as it is ridiculous. 

Turning to personal evidence, the first and 
perhaps the strongest is the phrase just quoted 
from his letter to Hookham. The next in order 
is Mary Shelley's illiberal and bad-natured refer- 
ence to his dining every evening at Bishopgate 
*' to drink his bottle." She accuses him of bad 
temper, boasts that she does not speak to him, 
and would surely have been only too glad to add 
the sin of drunkenness to swell her grievance, 
if he had given her the smallest chance. Her 
silence therefore is eloquent. In his diary, 
written at a time between the composition of 
Nightmare Abbey and Maid Marian, are found 
such disgraceful entries as " Went in the boat 
to Robin's Island with some cold lamb and ale 
and the Dionysiaca " ; and one morning, after 
a day similarly spent on the river " with Nonnus," 
he writes, " Very ill this morning, which I attri- 
bute to the combination of ale and heat. 
Speculate on drinking water." It would be diffi- 
cult to construe these jottings as confessions of 
excess, though the second might delight the 
teetotallers. Sir Edward Strachey, who knew 

90 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

Peacock about the time that Crotchet Castle was 
written, says that he was in the habit of talking 
as if he were much attached to good living, 
though the only incident he ever noticed 
tending to prove this attachment was, that 
Peacock once ate a sweet which he knew was 
likely to disagree with him. This evidence is 
very important, for in Crotchet Castle more than 
in any of his books he seems to glorify eating 
and drinking. Still later Robert Buchanan, 
who knew him in his old age, says that he enjoyed 
a good dinner, but that he spent as little time as 
possible over it, and that the strongest drink 
they had together was cowslip wine made by 
his adopted daughter ; though Peacock told 
Thackeray about the same time that his favourite 
wine was Madeira. One of his latest writings, 
contributed to Fraser's Magazine witliin a few 
weeks of his seventy-second birthday — when, 
some might say, he ought to have known better — 
was the article called " The Flask of Cratinus," 
the avowed theme of which is " the dependence 
of good poetry on good liquor." Ancient 
drunkards are here warmly eulogised, and the 
writer manifests a boyish delight in the fact that 
iEschylus introduces Jason and his companions 
" gloriously drunk " on the stage. If severe 
moralists will not listen to the plea that this 

91 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

piece is a playful exhibition of curious learning, 
they must accept the discriminating fact that 
he quotes Lord Monboddo on the advisability 
of mixing water with wine, and concludes with 
the advice : Be sober. 

Thus the evidence, such as it is, all points to 
one conclusion, that Peacock was a moderate 
man ; and this is confirmed by what we know 
of his tastes and pursuits. A man so constantly 
engaged in active physical exercise and hard ^ 
study cannot have had much time left for " cul- 
tivating the bottle." Allowance must of course 
be made for the change in habits which has 
taken place in the last hundred years, and no 
attempt is here made to prove that Peacock was 
what would now be called a very moderate 
drinker. No doubt he was as good a judge of 
a bottle of wine as any gentleman in the kingdom, 
and would have been the first to take offence if 
his qualification in that respect had been 
questioned. If we could see him among the 
company which he had in his mind's eye when 
describing some of the dinners and diners in his 
books, we should probably put him down as a 
good drinker, surrounded by companions most 
of whom were drunkards. 

But to return to Maentwrog. The next letter 
is long and full of information. He has evidently 

92 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

made up his mind to stay for some time in his 
present quarters, as he has sent to London for 
the greater part of his books and clothes, which 
had been left behind until he should have found 
a suitable spot to settle in. While he is without 
his belongings he is exploring the neighbourhood 
with great minuteness ; exactly as Mr. Chain - 
mail in Crotchet Castle, pending the arrival of the 
captain with a parcel of books from London, 
spends his time in penetrating the intricacies 
of the mountain valleys. Moreover, as that 
gentleman met Miss Susannah during this interval 
of exploration, so it was in the early part of his 
time at Maentwrog that Peacock met Miss Jane. 
He is said to have described her as Anthelia ; 
he obviously painted her as Susannah. In the 
imfinished Cotswold Chace, which may have 
been written at almost any date after Crotchet 
Castle, but is probably much later, the same girl 
is portrayed ; the blue gown and black hat and 
feather are again insisted upon, and no doubt 
were the principal features in Miss Gryffydh's 
usual costume. Richard Cotswold thus des- 
cribes his fair neighbour : " She dresses almost 
always in very fine cloth, usually blue, with a 
black hat and feather, and very neat boots, 
laced over a small and very pretty foot. She 
wears no crinoline and, if I might venture 

93 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

io devine, no stays. In short she is like a Greek 
statue, only in thicker but still fine and graceful 
drapery ; and all her movements are graceful. 
Her features are as regular as sculpture could 
make them. Her complexion is, I imagine, 
naturally fair, but slightly embrowned by air 
and exercise ; and there is over it a pure roseate 
glow of health, that makes her literally radiant. 
Her hair is very fine, and slightly darker than 
her eyes, which are hazel ; and there is a bril- 
liancy of expression about them that seems to 
emanate from a very high order of mind. Her 
voice in speaking is at once soft and full, sweet 
and distinct, the natural articulation of graceful 
and unruffled thoughts. I imagine that she 
sings and that her singing voice is no loss charm- 
ing." Everything in these letters is redolent of 
the novels. Crotchet Castle is again recalled by 
his descriptions of the scenery. He quotes here 
one of the bardic triads, placed afterwards at the 
head of the sixth chapter in the Misfortunes of 
Elphin, One passage is peculiarly remarkable, 
relating an adventure of his future father-in-law, 
afterwards inserted, with variations, in Headlong 
Hall. It deserves to be told in his own words : 

" The other day I prevailed on my new ac- 
quaintance. Dr. Gryffydh, to accompany me at 
midnight to the ' Black Cataract,' a favourite 

94 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

haunt of mine, about two and a half miles from 
here. Mr. Lloyd, whom I believe I have men- 
tioned to you more than once, volunteered to be 
of the party ; and at twenty minutes past 
eleven, hghted by the full-orbed moon, we sallied 
forth, to the no small astonishment of mine 
host, who protested he never expected to see us 
all again. The effect was truly magnificent. 
The water descends from a mountain glen down 
a winding rock, and then precipitates itself in 
one sheet of foam over its black base into a 
capacious bason, the sides of which are almost 
perpendicular and covered with hanging oak and 
hazel. Evans, in the Cambrian Itinerary, des- 
cribes it as an abode of damp and horror, and 
adds that the whole cataract cannot be seen in 
one view, as the sides are too steep and slippery 
to admit of cUmbing up, and the top of the upper 
fall is invisible from below. Mr. Evans seems 
to have laboured under a small degree of alarm, 
which prevented accurate investigation, for I have 
repeatedly climbed this unattemptable rock and 
obtained this impossible view ; as he or any 
one else might do with very little difficulty ; 
though Dr. Gryffydh the other night, trusting 
to a rotten branch, had a fall of fifteen feet 
perpendicular, and but for an intervening hazel 
would infallibly have been hurled to the bottom. 

95 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

But a similar mistake is not likely to occur in 
daylight." 

Every reader of the novels will remember the 
fall of Mr. Cranium from the tower. The 
parallel is closer than appears at first sight. 
Dr. Gryffydh's fall was caused by the breaking 
of a branch ; that of Mr. Cranium by the giving 
way of a tuft of ivy. Dr. Gryffydh was saved 
by a hazel bush ; Mr. Cranium owed at least 
the gentleness of his descent to the same plant, 
and Peacock, who had in fact led his future 
father-in-law into danger, represents himself 
in the novel as saving him. Escot, who marries 
the beautiful Cephalis, is Peacock, who went 
through that ceremony with the beautiful Jane 
more than once in fiction, both before and after 
doing so in reality. It is probably, therefore, not 
too far-fetched to see in the enthusiastic Mr. 
Cranium a caricature of Dr. Gryffydh holding 
forth on some favourite subject. 

In these letters, too, is the first mention of 
" Mary Ann," about whom very little can be 
known or even inferred, but who certainly was 
a person of no little importance in Peacock's 
life a few years later. It appears even that at 
one time he had thoughts of marrying her. From 
his writing to Hookham and calling her merely 
by her Christian names, it may be that she was a 

96 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

sister of his friend. Miss GryfiEydh is also men- 
tioned, though not by name : " The Caernarvon- 
shire nymph, whom I once mentioned to you, 
pleased me by talking of Scipio and Hannibal 
and the Emperor Otho. It is now a month 
since I saw her, and Richard is himself again." 
The last letter of the series was full of informa- 
tion for his correspondent, but without the 
commentary derived from others, now lost or 
unavailable, it tells us little, except that Peacock 
had been seriously ill and was not yet quite 
recovered. From a letter quoted by Dr. Garnett 
we learn that he was still in the same neighbour- 
hood in the early part of the foUo\sing year. 
He has just bidden adieu to the Caernarvonshire 
nymph, who has resumed her ascendency, and 
is once more not himself. 

The principal outcome of this sojourn was 
another elaborate poem, The Philosophy of 
Melancholy, published about a year after he left 
Wales, that is to say, in the early part of 1812. 
The title contains a promise which is more than 
half a threat. It may reasonably be hoped 
that the substance of this poem will offer more 
int-erest to the modem reader than anything 
Peacock had j^et written. The theme, theo- 
retical and speculative but at the same time 
intimate, was likely to inspire him to a sincerer 

97 o 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

and more personal utterance. And in fact The 
Philosophy of Melancholy, the last of Peacock's 
early works, is the only one in which he reveals 
himself. The letters to Hookham contain docu- 
mentary evidence to prove, for instance, that 
in his descriptions of Welsh scenery he is 
painting faithfully from memory. More im- 
portant still is a passage, unique in its intro- 
spective tone, bearing strong testimony to his 
prevailing moodiness of temper and showing 
that the melancholy of the poem was a habitual 
affection of his mind. " There is more truth 
than poetry in the remark of Wordsworth that 
' as high as we have mounted in delight, in our 
dejection do we sink as low.' You saw this 
exemplified in me last summer, when I was 
sometimes skipping about the room, singing and 
playing all sorts of ridiculous antics, and at 
others doling out staves of sorrow, and medi- 
tating on daggers and laurel-water. Such is 
the disposition of all votaries of the muses, 
and in some measure of all metaphysicians : for 
the sensitive and the studious are generally 
prone to melancholy, and the melancholy are 
usually subject to intervals of boisterous mirth. 
Poor Cowper was a lamentable instance, and 
Tasso and Collins and Chatterton — a list that 
might be prolonged almost ad infinitum. I do 

98 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

not mean to say that the effects of this morbid 
disposition are alwaj^s so fatally exemplified as 
in the four I have mentioned, of whom three 
were diiven to insanity and one to suicide. 
Cratinus, Democritus, Horace and others have 
opined that a certain degree of noncomposity 
is essential to the poetic character : and I am 
inclined to think there is considerable justice 
in the observation." 

In this poem Peacock is still a- slave, but the 
more congenial theme allows him a greater degree 
of libert}^ in sentiment, if not in its expression. 
It has been remarked that in the Thames he did 
his best to banish experience and called upon a 
too pedestrian fancy to take its place. Here 
on the contrary he is bold enough to say : " I 
was alone in the mountains of Merionethshire, 
and observed the woods and waterfalls in their 
changes with the different seasons and weathers." 
This distinction may not at first seem sufficiently 
important to call for much emphasis. But in 
Peacock's case it marks far more than a difference 
in form ; it shows a change in aim and feeling, 
resulting partly from two years' growth and partly 
from the choice of a happier theme. It is safe 
to say that two years before respect for the pro- 
prieties would have rendered impossible the 
direct personal expression of sentiment which, 

99 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

sparingly introduced in this poem, is yet its 
life. 

To hunt for external causes explaining the 
stages of a mind's development is a thankless 
task. The only perfectly safe interpretation 
of such phenomena is that they happened because 
it was time for them to happen — that the plant 
flowered in its season, and withered or bore fruit 
according to its nature. Some circumstances 
may be pointed out as exerting an influence 
on the life of the mind ; but the discovery of 
sufficient causes to account for all subsequent 
growth and expansion is the ambition of a pedant 
and the superstition of the unimaginative. The 
scenery of North Wales may, or rather must 
have had something to do with Peacock's develop- 
ment, yet as far back as we know anything of 
him he was always devoted to scenery. Why 
should the Welsh hills have supplied him with 
just that impulse which the Thames valley all 
his life, and especially in 1809, had failed to 
provide ? It is useless to ask. Probably by 
his own growth he was ready to receive the 
influence and happened to receive it in Wales. 
Probably too his solitude was greater at that 
time than ever before. Another factor clamours 
for the title of causa efftciens — Jane Gryffydh I 
Yes, because we happen to know about her. 

100 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

But few men live to the age of twenty-eight 
without having been in love, or at least without 
having their emotions and imagination stirred 
by one or more women. Few who are at all 
deeply emotional reveal these inner disturbances 
of their peace unless they go far and seem to 
portend consequences : none so reticent as 
Peacock do. More than a general and theo- 
retical importance therefore must be conceded to 
the fact that we know this was not his first love 
affair. The earliest is supposed to have been an 
attachment, mentioned by all the writers on his 
life but explained by none, to a girl whom he knew 
in Chertsey, which, his granddaughter states, 
was the most lasting and influential of his life. 
The spirit of this poem has somewhat in- 
accurately been called pessimism by a modem 
writer : it would be better described as con- 
templativeness. It is that of a disillusioned 
man, but it is no barren brooding, productive 
of nothing and ending in despair or cynicism. 
It is far removed from the indefinite grief of the 
typically minor poet, the vague sorrow, the 
professional attitude of suffering, which takes 
some subject as a text, and proceeds to pomt 
out that in spite of its beauty and charm, it has 
no power to heal a lacerated heart or restore 
the delight and innocence of youthful years. 

101 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

It is of a more intellectual type, keen and 
positive ; that spirit which, either from dis- 
appointment or distaste for what is commonly 
called the life of the world, turns, not to brood 
but to find consolation and delight in the solitude 
of nature, in histor}^ and philosophy. He de- 
scribes the scenery which had captivated him 
two years before. He cherished an affectionate 
memory of the Welsh mountains, his impressions 
of them were vivid and lasting. In these lines 
he succeeds in imparting to the local names 
some of the haunting sweetness which they had 
for him. His pleasure at the sight of the water- 
falls in frosty weather is remembered : 

The sheeted foam, the falling stream beneath, 
Clothed the high rocks with frost-work's wildest 

wreath : 
Round their steep sides the arrested ooze had 

made 
A vast, fantastic, crystal colonnade : 
The scattering vapour, frozen ere it fell. 
With mimic diamonds spangled all the dell. 
Decked the gay woods with many a pendent 

gem. 
And gave the oak its wintry diadem. 

The same philosophy applied to painting and 

music leads to the remark, that the invariably 

melancholy character of primitive music is 

perhaps answerable for the early belief in its 

power over nature, illustrated in legends such 

102 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

as that of Orpheus. Eight years later he wrote 
that these were only *' metaphors for the 
faculty of leading multitudes by the nose." The 
reader is at liberty to think either or both of 
these explanations sincere. 

The next subject is melancholy in its personal 
and social aspect. Here occurs another of those 
intimate paragraphs, so rare in Peacock's 
writings. As this poem has never been re- 
printed some lines may be quoted here, not, 
in the words of Peacock's first editor, " as a 
specimen of poetry particularly excellent," but 
for their biographical interest. They contain 
the first mention of Jane Gry ffydh in his published 
works, perhaps indeed the only one that it is 
well nigh impossible to query or refer to some 
one else. So little having been reported of this 
lady's character and disposition, it is interesting 
to note that she had, according to her admirer, 
a melanchoHc temperament. He refers to her 
in the approved manner : 

That fair form, ah, now too far remote. 
Whose glossy locks on ocean-breezes float ; 
That tender voice, whose rapture-breathing 

thrill. 
Unheard so long, in fancy vibrates still ; 
That Parian hand, that draws, with artless fire. 
The soul of music from her mountain lyre ; 

and adds : 

103 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

The plaintive minstrel's legendary strain 
One added power of softest charm shall gain, 
When she, whose breast thy purest fount 

supplies. 
Bids thy own songs, oh melancholy ! rise. 

The last section justifies the poet's attitude 
towards life and its pleasures, and so leads up 
to his moral acceptance of the laws of nature 
and faith in mankind. The effects of vicissitude 
are demonstrably good ; we must therefore 
believe in the wisdom and necessity of constant 
change. But the pleasure-seeker perishes through 
these very circumstances : the quaUties which 
they call for and develop are virtue, genius and 
courage. There are abundant examples of these 
in the records of antiquity. We, who possess 
the additional advantages of revealed truth 
and scientific knowledge, ought to surpass the 
ancients in their excellences. Thus the fabri- 
cation of decorous poetry led Peacock into a 
very slush of insincerity. What he thought of 
revealed religion may be read in his prose works 
passim. If satirical writings be not accepted 
in evidence, appeal may be made to two of his 
favourite books. Ancient Metaphysics, an avowed 
object of which was to revive the deism of later 
classical times, and Academical Questions, whose 
author was at heart an atheist. 

104 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

The careful elaboration bestowed upon The 
Philosophy of Melancholy was worthy of a more 
important subject. Partly didactic and partly 
a personal confession, composed in a placid 
flowing style, it has neither the argumentative 
passion of Lucretius nor the antithetic procedure 
of Pope. It passes on from one illustration to 
another, from one allusion to the next, setting 
forth the theme in a series of pictures. From 
many points of view it shows distinct im- 
provement on The Genius of the Thames. There 
is still a too great profusion of epithets, but they 
are now more telling and less conventional. The 
heroic couplet has seldom been handled with 
greater art. From end to end of the poem it is 
well nigh impossible to find a rough or unmusical 
line. But the rhythms are slow : there is too 
much attempt at stately movement, naively 
enough often by enclosing between commas 
phrases that might quite well run on. The 
very faultlessness of the metre is by no means 
an unmixed blessing, since everything else is 
sacrificed to it. Style was the chief if not the 
only preoccupation ; consequently there is little 
to say about the poem except that it is highly 
correct, its weakness lying in the epithets and 
its peculiarity in the use of hyphened words. 
Peacock's fondness for these had already appeared 

105 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

sufficiently strongly to call forth the wrath of 
the critics. But he did not repent, and now 
used them more frequently and with greater 
effect. His is something more than a mere 
habit of joining together by means of a hyphen 
words which are generally written either sepa- 
rately or in one. The hyphen is one of the few 
means at our disposal for evading or supple- 
menting the grossness of grammatical speech. 
When two words are written together as one 
the accent is lost to one or the other, and this 
partner consequently loses its full share in the 
meaning. But when they are skilfully hyphened 
each keeps all its stress and all its meaning : 
something new is really added to their sug- 
gestive power, and the impression they make 
is more than the sum of each of their values. 
Peacock was alive to the advantage to be 
obtained from this manipulation and bringing 
together of words. He was so fond of it that 
he used it excessively ; and though it may not 
be easy to point out why " fairy grove " is left 
unjoined and " laurel-shade " occurring in the 
next line is hyphened, yet such expressions as 
** His (Calude's) evening-valleys and his weed- 
twined fanes " and " Her glance, quick-turned 
towards the note " make a very definite im- 
pression, and may serve to illustrate the peculiar 

106 



PSEUDO-CLASSICISM 

effect which Peacock strove to produce by using 
this means so frequently in his poems. The 
smooth flow of the verse comes nearer to being 
interrupted by some of these couplings than at 
any other moments. But it has a monotony 
of beauty which holds the attention of the ear 
while failing to satisfy the other faculties. 
It is a reed of melodious but insufficiently varied 
tone, and though the playing is always skilful 
it is at moments of emotion only that the music 
can interest whose who listen for something more 
significant than quality of sound. Such moments 
are more frequent in this than in any of his earlier 
writings. It is a work of his own mood and 
genius. He found both subject and illustration 
in his own heart. Here he has enshrined his 
three early and constant loves, of nature, of 
books and of a woman. He has made a declara- 
tion of ideals and tastes. Yet all these vital 
qualities are laid to rest in the coffin of the dic- 
tion and the tomb of mannerism. As a poet 
Peacock has to be diligently sought out ; those 
passages must be discovered where he is ex- 
pressing himself simply and sincerely, from 
among a much larger number which he wrote 
for various trivial reasons, to imitate what pleased 
him, to deck his literary discoveries in an 
ornamental robe, to satisfy the requirements of 

107 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

an unfortunate convention. Although psycho- 
logically The Philosophy of Melancholy is a 
genuine utterance of the man himself, it belongs 
artistically to the second category. 



108 



IV 
BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

THE Philosophy of Melancholy was the 
last of what may be called, for the 
sake of convenience, Peacock's eigh- 
teenth century poems. With the publication 
of this work his first period, already too long, 
comes definitely to an end. He had come near 
to perfecting himself in the style while freeing 
himseK by degrees, though never nearly enough, 
from the limitations which that age imposed 
upon its writers. Yet had he written no verse 
except those seriously laboured productions, 
we should be justified in sapng that the first 
seven years of his literary career were devoted 
to the complete statement of his only illusion, 
namely, that he was a poet. 

By his seven years of bondage he earned an 
unexpected reward. One of his pseudo-classical 
studies was the means of introducing him to the 
man who applied to it a vital criticism and to 
his intellect just that impulse that was needed 
to incite him to something better. At this 

109 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

point of his life he encountered its greatest in- 
fluence, resulting in his being henceforth true to 
himself, cultivating sincerely his true genius and 
no longer resting satisfied with the elaboration 
of ornamental commonplace. Devoted scholar 
as he was, he learned as readily from humanity 
and from nature as from books. His sojourn 
in Wales and his friendship with Shelley con- 
tributed to his intellectual stock elements more 
vital and fruitful than anything he had gathered 
from his reading. From this time he ceased to 
invoke dryads by the Thames and to desire a 
population of oreads for the Cambrian hills. 
He regretted as keenly as ever the heroic ages 
of the world and the classical spirit in literature : 
he made no truce with the present. But he 
attempted no more to recall the " sacred in- 
fluence " by writing of the English woodlands as 
of the groves of Arcady. A ripening knowledge 
of life and a constantly increasing familiarity 
with antiquity would co-operate in imparting 
to him a clearer vision. Both would teach him 
that to write of contemporary^ life and personal 
experience in the manner of a prize copy of Latin 
verse only brings about a false and unclassical 
confusion : that walking tours are not to be 
rendered poetical by mythological treatment ; 
above all, that to adopt the style of an outworn 

110 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

unreal poetical tradition was no true antidote 
to what he considered the vicious and trivial 
manner of the new school. Henceforward he 
wrote mythologically of a mythological time in 
the world's history, and satisfied his longing for 
heroic imagery and setting by the study and 
reproduction of the events of a legendary age. 
He transferred the antiquit}^ from his epithets 
to his plots. He tended more and more to treat 
his own time satirically, in prose and verse, 
while writing a greater number of those small 
poems, lyrics, ballads and catches, which do not 
seem at the present day to belong to any particu- 
lar age, and b}^ their freshness in spite of the 
changes in taste and fashion have made a fair 
bid for immortality. 

A few such pieces had already been written 
during the past six years, and are among the 
poems of Peacock which will find a place in 
posterity's final selection from his work. The 
first is indubitably Beneath the Cypress Shade, 
and the next Al mio Primiero Amore. The 
simplicity of the verse and its perfect adaptation 
to the form of thought is such that it is impossible 
to imagine the statement being made in any 
other way. Flowing in rhythm, clear in phrasing, 
terse and restrained in language, these little 
pieces are telling in every line and half line. 

111^ 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

But what gives to these and other of Peacock's 
lyrics their peculiar charm and excellence is, 
besides their genuine poetic emotion, his gift of 
perfect adequacy in expression. At his best 
he never oversteps or falls short of the complete 
statement of his thought, and any one of the 
songs and ballads in which he attains to this high 
standard would be sufficient to prove that he 
was a poet of far finer qualities than those he 
had displayed up to this time in his longer poems. 
Most of the verses written subsequently to these 
he found means to insert into his novels. The 
best of those not so published belong to the 
later periods of his life. Among these should 
be mentioned Margaret Love Pea^^ock (1826), an 
inscription for the grave of his four-year-old 
daughter ; Eich and Poor, or. Saint and Sinner 
(1831) ; and Newark Abbey, written in 1842 in 
remembrance of the events of thirty-five years 
before. Castles in the Air and On Callers are 
both extremely characteristic. 

The fragment of Ahrimanes is undated ; but 
there is extremely strong evidence, both internal 
and circumstantial, almost proving that it was 
not begun before 1813, when Peacock made the 
acquaintance of that eccentric individual on 
whose pet theories the poem is founded : and 
the latest year which could with any show of 

112 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

reason be proposed as the date of its composition 
would be 1819, when, the company that brought 
them together having been broken up some 
time since, the intercourse in all probability 
came to an end. Sir Henry Cole, who is as a 
rule so careful and accurate, must have been 
misinformed about this work. He can hardly 
have seen it, for he describes it as the first canto 
in an unfinished condition ; whereas the frag- 
ment in reality consists of the first canto complete 
in thirty stanzas, and fourteen stanzas of a second. 
This inaccuracy may make us the less chary of 
disbelieving his statement that it was written 
in 1810, one of the few years out of the whole 
of Peacock's life about which we have a good 
deal of knowledge. 

In his early works Peacock inclines to an 
unruffled, conventional patriotism and an equally 
vague and respectable religious attitude. In 
comparison with these, Ahrimanes is almost a 
song of revolt. The lines already noticed at the 
end of the Philosophy of Melancholy, containing 
the ethical conclusion to be drawn from the 
poem, and followed by those declaring that all 
things proceed from God, contain nothing out 
of keeping with his previous writings, published 
or unpublished. If these be compared with 
Ahrimanes it will be difficult to believe that 

113 H 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

they were composed after it. Is it true, he asks 
in Ahrimanes, that an evil influence rules the 
world ? that the man whose life is passed in 
toil and darkness, the slave of ambition, the 
thrall of superstition, all alike in their prayers 
and sacrifices call only on this power of ill ? Is 
there a single spot on earth where fraud, corrup- 
tion, selfishness and pride do not wear the 
'* specious robes of sanctity " to enable them 
to break the natural bonds of love and peace ? 
where "idle tales, that truth and sense deride. 
Claim no dominion o'er the subject soul ? " 
Such a region may exist, where the good 
influence still reigns ; 

But not in fanes where priestly curses ring, 
Not in the venal court, the servile camp. 
Not where the slaves of a voluptuous king 
Would fain o'erwhelm, in flattery's poison 

clamp. 
Truth's vestal torch and love's promethean 

lamp ; 
Not where the tools of tyrants bite the ground 
'Mid broken swords and steeds' ensanguined 

tramp. 
To add one gem to those that now surround 
Some pampered baby's brow, may trace of 

him be found. 

The absence or powerlessness of the good genius 
is equally proclaimed " whenever guiltless vic- 
tims fall, Wherever priest the sword of strife 

114 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

displays ; " and this argument is pursued in a 
note pointing the significance of the lines, in 
a manner full of suggestiveness for the study of 
Peacock's development. The passage runs : *' It 
is possible to sacrifice victims — human victims — 
without cutting their throats or shedding a drop 
of their blood ; and that, too, under the name and 
with the specious form of justice. It is possible 
to display the sword of strife and be a ver}'- effec- 
tive member of the church militant without 
the visible employment of temporal weapons. 
If a man can be robbed of his liberty and his 
property for the calm exposition of his opinions 
on speculative subjects, it is of little consequence 
whether the instrument of oppression be a Grand 
Inquisition or an Attorney General." 

Dr. Young has suggested * that these lines and 
the note appended to them refer directly to 
Shelley ; but there are difiiculties in the way of 
this application, independent of the assumption 
of as late a date as 1817 for the composition of 
the fragment. In the first place to describe 
Shelley as " deprived of his liberty and his 
property " because he was denied the custody 
of his children would be a weak exaggeration, 
unworthy and uncharacteristic of Peacock : 
the idea, too, that children are the chattels of 

* In an article in the Modern Language Quarterly. 

115 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

their parents would be utterly hateful to Shelley 
and all his sympathisers. Moreover the chancery 
petition was not decided against Shelley on the 
ground of his opinions on speculative subjects, 
but on that of his conduct. The former was 
the common belief, fostered not a little by the 
prohibition to publish the judgment ; but Pea- 
cock knew the truth of the matter, and later in 
life he published the full explanationin his Memoir. 
The passage probably refers, if to any definite 
case, to the trial of the bookseller Eaton, who 
had published a free-thought pamphlet and was 
convicted of blasphemy. His fine and imprison- 
ment for this cause are correctly described in the 
words of Peacock's note, and were the subject 
of Shelley's letter to Lord Ellenborough. 

Whether or no Peacock had in mind any of 
the cases in which Shelley was personally con- 
cerned or interested, there can be no doubt as 
to the person under whose influence the first 
three stanzas of Canto 11. were written. Style 
and substance alike proclaim it. There is not 
much evidence to suggest that at any other 
period of his life Peacock took an intense interest 
in '* guiltless victims." He was more a satirist 
of the great than a champion of the unfortunate. 
The sentences were prompted by the emotion 
of the moment : they were not in his usual vein, 

116 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

and were afterwards cancelled. The contagious 
enthusiasm of Shelley seems to have acted 
strongly upon him in this instance, as indeed he 
always made an exception in his judgment 
wherever Shelley was concerned. 

He tells us in his Memoir that his first meeting 
with Shelley was in 1812, just before the Shelleys 
went to Tanyrallt. What led to the acquaint- 
ance, or who introduced the two who afterwards 
became such close friends, has not been recorded ; 
but the meeting was in all probability brought 
about by Hookham, who in this year sent Shelley 
a copy of The Philosophy of Melancholy and 
the volume containing the new edition of The 
Genius of the Thames and Palmyra, which drew 
from him the extraordinary criticism quoted 
in the third chapter. In the letter to Hookham 
acknowledging the books he gives high praise 
to Peacock's intellect, learning and versification, 
but laments that his powers should be so 
misapplied. He objects strongly to the apparent 
identification of well-being with commerce, of 
the happiness of the British people with the 
triumphs of the British flag ; and points out, 
what is in fact the most offensive line in the 
whole of Peacock's writings, in which George 
III., whom he rightly calls a *' warrior and a 
tyrant," is styled a " patriot king." These 

117 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

accusations (which for precisely opposite reasons 
Southey was later on to bring against Shelley) 
probably startled and annoyed Peacock if they 
reached him. Yet they contained by implica- 
tion the greatest compliment he had ever 
received. Shelley thought him capable of better 
things. The criticism is typical of what Shelley 
was to do for him by encouraging what was best 
and most original in his genius, and censuring 
what was formal and affected. There can be 
little doubt that when they knew each other 
better vShelley forced him to see the falseness of 
his previous unthinking attitude ; and the lines 
in Ahrimaiies are a proof that their author was 
successfully shaken, for the time at least, out of 
the complacent mood which had seemed to him 
the proper atmosphere of serious poetry. 

The acquaintance, begun in the summer of 
1812, was renewed in the first months of the 
next 3^ear, when Peacock tells us that they met 
a few times. He was again in Wales in the 
early summer, and on his return accepted 
Shelley's invitation to stay with him at Bracknell 
in August or September. It is a remark that 
has often been made, and yet any one who reads 
the history of this friendship will be constrained 
to make it afresh : how ill-assorted a pair they 
seem, according to our limited means of knowing 

118 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

either of them. It must at first have been the 
natural but not easily definable attraction that 
brain has for brain, in spite of obvious and deep- 
rooted opposition of tastes and opinions. The 
friendship was made possible by the fortunate 
circumstance that both were men of great 
capacity of attachment, and it was actively 
cultivated by a large measure of toleration on 
either side. It appears from the manner 
adopted by Shelley in mentioning Peacock in 
his correspondence, and from the general tone 
of Peacock's Memoir of Shelley, that those differ- 
ences which might have been expected to result 
in antipathy formed instead the basis of a mutual 
and good-natured forbearance, whereby the 
two men were enabled to be of service one to the 
other in those matters upon which agreement, 
and the asking and giving of advice, were possible. 
Peacock reveals an attitude of humorous 
tolerance towards Shelley, with his hallucinations, 
eccentricities and violent enthusiasms : Shelley 
on the other hand complains of Peacock's lack 
of enthusiasm and narroT^Tiess of outlook, but 
finds compensation in his equal freedom from 
pride, superstition or tendency to dogmatise. 
He speaks of him again as a good scholar and 
an agreeable companion. 
It is t^^ical of the manner in which Peacock's 

119 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

life, even during the periods when he was most 
under observation, has escaped record, that not 
one of the various people whom he met at this 
time or subsequently under Shelley's roof has 
attempted anything like a complete description 
or appreciation of him. Not to mention the 
Shelleys, Hunt and Hogg were garrulous writers, 
and Newton must be reckoned as an author, for 
in addition to the works to be mentioned shortly 
he afterwards published a memoir of the early 
days of Canning. According to Professor Dow- 
den, Peacock made himself disUked by the Boin- 
villes and the Newtons by laughing at their 
enthusiasms ; Mrs. Newton alludes to him as a 
" cold scholar," lacking both in taste and 
feeling. People who knew him well speak chiefly 
of his kindliness and geniality and of his great 
learning. Others were arrested by what they 
considered his peculiarities. A lady who was 
acquainted with him during his long visit to 
Wales told Shelley that he lived quite alone in 
a remote cottage, " associating with nobody 
and hiding his head like a murderer," and added 
the damnatory statement, that he was an atheist. 
The latter is of course not true, and only shows 
how easy it was to frighten the Welsh by keeping 
away from chapel ; but it is an excellent 
instance of how superficial observers, judging 

120 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

from the least significant indications, will light- 
heartedly make a dogmatic statement about the 
most intimate convictions of a man of genius. 
Some years later a friend writes of his being 
engaged in trying to construct inextinguishable 
lanterns, and amusing himself by puffing at them 
with a pair of bellows. A more detailed account 
of some of his odd habits is given by an ac- 
quaintance whom he visited shortly before 
going to the Shelleys at Bracknell. His practice 
of reading with a classical text in one hand and 
a commentary in the other astonished the country 
neighbours, who could not understand why he 
should want to read two books at once. He 
spent most of his day walking in the neighbour- 
hood, stopping at any piece of water he might 
come across in his wanderings to sail paper boats. 
" These long solitary walks, his paper boats, his 
books, and the fact that he was a poet, made 
him a sort of mysterious being to the country 
people, who certainly were somewhat afraid of 
him."* His host was evidently able to get at 
something of what underlay these eccentricities, 
for he tells us that he was much interested in 
Peacock's conversation. But unfortunately he 
does not pursue this part of the subject. 

The sailing of paper boats was one unusual 

• Life and Letters of John Arthur JRoehuck^ page 8. 

121 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

taste which he and Shelley had in common, and 
was very likely as good a bond of union between 
them as sympathy in more serious pursuits 
between men of more conventional habits. 
Professor Dowden has shown that Peacock was 
mistaken in thinking that he had initiated 
Shelley into the sport, for Shelley was already 
an adept when they met. At Bracknell they 
had ample opportunities for indulging in it 
together. 

If none of the members of the group collected 
round Shelley in this summer have recorded their 
impressions of Peacock, he has given us a vivid 
account of them as they struck him on first 
coming among them. The circle was made up 
of people who agreed in varying degrees with 
Shelley in his revolutionary principles in politics 
and religion, and in the theory and practice of 
vegetarianism, based on considerations of every 
nature, hygienic, moral and humanitarian. Thus 
there were a comparatively large number of 
principles upon which they were all in agreement, 
and on those main issues conversation would 
have grown something more than stale. Dis- 
cussion began where their principles diverged. 
Each member of the party branched off, as it 
were, at a different angle and altitude, from the 
stem of their collective thought, which doubtless 

122 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

appeared of far less consequence in their daily 
life than those ramifications which gave to each 
one his individuality in contrast with the rest. 
The fancied importance of these distinctions 
and the earnestness with which each supported 
his pet theory was irresistibly comic to an on- 
looker who did not adopt any of their doctrines 
in the passionate and proselytising spirit of the 
disputants ; and Peacock relates that both 
Harriet and himself were sometimes irreverent 
enough to give way to unseemly laughter. It 
is easy to see that among this circle the author 
of Headlong Hall could study at his ease from 
life. 

Of all the people who at different times were 
members of this society Peacock tells us most 
particularly of Mr. J. F. Newton. He was an 
extreme vegetarian and even more drink-shy 
than a teetotaller, and advocated a diet consist- 
ing solely of roots, fruits, and distilled water. 
He had written a tract called " The Return to 
Nature," a title affording a ready weapon against 
him and his recommendation of distilled water, 
a drink almost as far removed from that supplied 
by nature as brandy or Burton ale. However, 
it was his belief that all physical suffering and 
sickness, all moral diseases and perversions, 
had been brought into existence through the 

123 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

corrupting use of animal food and strong drink ; 
and lie was convinced that the adoption by all 
men of the system of life recommended in his 
book would bring back health, purity, peace and 
happiness into the world and restore the golden 
age. This might be called the practical side of 
his religion : the theosophical or cosmographic 
basis of the ethical creed was as obscure and far- 
fetched as this was simple and actual. The 
Zodiac of Dendera was the mystical symbol : 
the grouping of its component parts proved, 
according to his interpretation, the necessity of 
the vegetable regimen. 

Peacock's attention to these extravagances 
was at first more amused than serious. Yet 
he was much impressed with Newton and his 
general theory of degeneration, drawing largely 
therefrom for the deteriorationists of his early 
novels. He also took the trouble to master the 
intricacies of the Zodiac of Dendera as mystic- 
ally interpreted by his friend. He was attracted 
to it as a piece of curious learning, but by degrees 
came to associate it closely with himself ; so 
that Shelley could write to him, in his long 
descriptive letter of July 1816, "Do you, who 
assert the supremacy of Ahriman, imagine him 
throned among these desolating snows," etc. 

The fragment Ahrimanes was to have this 

124 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

system as its ultimate explanation, not as its 
subject. On the surface it was to be a tale of 
adventure, bearing more resemblance to Rhodo- 
daphne than to any other of Peacock's works. 
It was to be epic, not astrological, and the signs 
of the zodiac had certainly nothing to do with 
the fact that it was projected to fill twelve cantos. 
The significance of the title may be easily deduced 
from the prose scheme of the whole work. The 
story was of a struggle against Fate, and in a 
sense of the evasion of it ; and this fate, in the 
third quarter of the world's histon', in which we 
live, was necessarily an evil power — Ahrimanes. 
We have no means of stating precisely 
Peacock's grounds for abandoning the poem. 
The fragment itself affords no clue. It is in a 
highly finished state, and there is nothing to 
suggest that he was dissatisfied with what was 
written. On the contrary, it is quite up to the 
standard of the best writing in Rhododaphne, 
and shows Peacock in a vein less formal, less 
conventional and more full of his subject than 
any previous work on a similar scale. The 
influence of SheUey is strongly marked in the 
style, and there are moments of genuine inspira- 
tion beside which the most readable passages 
in the Philosophy of Melancholy are mere empty 
babbling. In our uncertainty as to its date we 

125 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

might imagine that it was his last attempt at 
a sustained poem, and that it was either laid 
aside when the appointment in the East India 
House made him turn his energies into another 
channel, or cut short by the mood that produced 
The Four Ages of Poetry, But just as internal 
evidence points to a date later than 1812 for 
its composition, so similar considerations make 
it difficult to place it later than Ehododaphne, 
written in the winter of 1817-18. From a 
comparison of what we know of Peacock's reading 
with his productions, it may be stated as a general 
rule that his writing followed pretty closely on 
his studies. This affords an a priori argument 
for assigning this poem to the period between 
the autumn of 1813 and the end of 1814 ; for it 
would not have been in consonance with his 
usual practice to take the trouble necessary to 
acquire material for a long poem in 1813, leave 
it idle for six years, and then, after publishing 
Bhododaphne, return to the zodiac and the 
powers of good and evil for a subject. The 
only pubKcations of the date here suggested 
were the curious ballads. Sir Hornbook and ^*V 
Proteus, neither of which could have occupied 
him very long ; while during the years 1815-18 
as much time as it was ever his custom to devote 
to literature can be accounted for by five 

126 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

published and three or four unfinished works. 
Moreover the favourite quotation of Mr. Toobad 
in Nightmare Abbey ^ " The Devil is come among 
you," &c., is adopted as the motto for Ahrimanes, 
This must surely have been before Peacock had 
made satirical use of it in his novel. The 
Lines to a Favourite Laurel, written in 1814, 
mention this somewhat obscure deity as casually 
and unexplainedly as one might name Puck 
or Jupiter, suggesting that Peacock was thinking 
habitually of tlie subject just then. They mark 
in all probability the actual date of composition. 
Their occasion is evidently the author's return, 
after a considerable time, to the neighbourhood 
of Ankerwyke Cottage. The absence in question 
may well be his journey to the north with the 
Shelleys. 

The poem was probably given up owing to an 
obvious weakness in the genius of the author. 
Ehododaphne is also a tale of enchantment and 
adventure ; but it is easy to see why he was 
able to carry on that poem to a conclusion, 
while the earlier narrative had proved too much 
for his strength. The finished work is a stor}^ of 
early Greek times. Its whole background, 
religious, historical, geographical and literary, 
was perfectly familiar to him, and throughout 
his life an object of passionate attachment. 

127 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

For its imagery, descriptions and sentiments he 
had but to draw upon his favourite reading and 
daily thoughts. For the kind of narrative he 
had undertaken, for the poetical achievement 
lying within his reach, the scene might as well 
be laid in Attica or Thessaly as in the valley of 
the Thames. All the details of the setting he 
could fill in with ease and deUght, and make his 
verse musically reminiscent of the artistic 
traditions, the poetical and historic associations 
immediately evoked to his memory by the place- 
names. The material was ready to hand ; the 
tale had simply to locaUse itself to be invested 
at once, in his mind, with vitality. The scheme 
of Ahrimanes made a much greater demand on 
his inventive powers. The legendary and re- 
ligious atmosphere was but known to him as a 
bare theory ; historic and artistic associations 
were lacking ; the kind of life to be depicted 
was problematic, except that in its more violent 
scenes certain features of Oriental conditions 
were to be prominent. In short, everything 
had to be created. To make a success of a nar- 
rative poem on the subject he had set himself 
would have required a strength and range of 
imagination, far in excess of the faculty with 
which he was endowed. The influence that 
stimulated him to write the poem imparted also 

128 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

the quickening of emotion and sentiment revealed 
in this fragment, apparently so happily begun. 
But the impulse alone could not supply a basic 
defect. It would have taken the genius of a 
Shelley to produce a great work out of the 
material, and a greater poet than Peacock 
to make a readable story with sustained 
interest. 

By this time Peacock had written a few in- 
considerable works which are yet biographic ally 
important as constituting the beginning of his 
satire and containing, though in an undeveloped 
state, nearly all its elements. These are his two 
farces, The Dilettanti and The Three Doctors, 
and the satirical ballad, Sir Proteus. The 
latter was published about the middle of 1814. 
The rough copy of The Three Doctors was 
written on the blank pages of an old account 
book belonging to his father, marked on the 
cover " Day Book : 1768 : Saml. Peacock." 
One of the sheets, containing only two lines of 
composition, bears witness to an attack of in- 
dolence or distraction, or a cessation of the 
creative impulse. It is scrawled over with de- 
tached words, capital letters, curves and mean- 
ingless strokes of the pen. In this mood the 
paper was turned round, with the left margin 

129 I 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

downwards, and in the comer was inscribed 
T. L. Peacock— 1811 
1768 



43 



It is to be hoped that this historical exercise, 
slowly and carefully penned, and containing 
perhaps the second best autograph to be found 
in the manuscripts, fully satisfied him as to the 
number of years the book had lain idle, and 
facilitated a renewed concentration upon the 
work in hand. To us it is welcome evidence 
that The Three Doctors was written in 1811. 
The style and construction of The Dilettanti 
point to its having been composed before this 
date, though later than The Circle of Loda, Both 
plays are intimately connected with Headlong 
Hally containing characters, situations, and even 
speeches found afterwards in the novel. It will 
be enough to mention Metaphor the poet. 
Chromatic the musician. Shadow the painter. 
Milestone the landscape gardener, and Shenkin, 
the servant with a Welsh accent. The earlier 
play shows little power of construction. The 
plot is a mere whirl of changing situations and 
misunderstandings, brought about by the face- 
tious tricks of an abominable stage Irishman. 

130 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

He comes into the house unknown and uninvited, 
locks people in closets, destroys the pictures, 
throws the furniture about, beats the servants, 
disseminates lies and scandal, plans an abduction 
and — receives a free pardon. In addition to 
this unreasonable use of the methods of farce and 
even of pantomime, other primitive devices, 
soliloquy, overhearing, and the presence of an 
unnoticed actor on the stage, are extensively 
made use of for the development of the plot. 
The amateurs who compose the house party are 
thrown together, to discuss, compliment each 
other and quarrel, in much the same way as 
the characters in the novels, though the short- 
ness of the scenes makes their conversation bare 
and fragmentary and gives no scope for the 
development of Peacock's characteristic humour. 
The lyrics scattered throughout the play are 
imdistinguished. A comparative interest at- 
taches to one of the characters, affording the 
first instance of the author's practice of intro- 
ducing actual people into his books. Metaphor, 
with his didactic poem on the Principles of 
Astonishment, is intended for Pa^Tie Knight, 
author of The Landscape, a didactic poem on the 
principles of Landscape Gardening. This gentle- 
man is referred to in a letter to Hookham of 
February 10th, 1809. Peacock says he particu- 

131 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

larly wishes to know whether Miss Cornelia 
Knight, author of the Description of Latium, is 
his sister. This looks very much as if he had 
intended to add another character to the play 
in the person of Miss Metaphor. The Kjiights, 
however, were not related, and nothing came 
of his intention. If this theory be accepted, we 
have the exact date of the composition of The 
Dilettanti. 

The second play is still more ludicrously 
short, being only half the length of the first. 
But it is much nearer to Headlong Hall and the 
rollicking fun of the early novels. In comparison 
with the two earlier plays it marks a decline in 
form and an advance in stjde, a sure sign of 
progression at this stage of Peacock's develop- 
ment. The snap and sparkle of the phrases, 
the tripping lyrics, the quaint oaths, the Welsh 
accent, the bustle and confusion, the accidents, 
the violence, the quarrels, provide an atmosphere 
in which the reader of Peacock's novels feels \ 
for the first time at home. The Dilettanti showed i 
us some of the characters who were afterwards ! 
to be guests at Headlong Hall : The Three 
Doctors introduces the house and grounds and 
the genial host. Mr. Hippy is simply Squire 
Headlong with the additional touch of hypo- 
chondriac malady suggested by his name, pro- >| 

132 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

phetic of the Mr. Hippy of Melincourt. He has 
succeeded unexpectedly to the property, which 
he finds in a state of the utmost disorder 
and neglect. He is urging his servants to their 
task of getting the house in order for the recep- 
tion of four healers and restorers, on whose help 
he relies to enable him to set things to rights. 
Narcotic is to cure his own illness, Windgall to 
doctor the horses, Barbet to attend the dogs, 
and Milestone has promised to restore order to 
the rank and overgrown grounds. Hippy's 
song in the midst of the confusion : 

Couldn't that old sot, Sir Peter, 

Keep his house a little neater ? 
is a distinct acquisition to the stock of humorous 
poems, and should alone earn for Dr. Young, 
who published the plays, the gratitude of the 
lovers of Peacock. 

The second edition of The Landscape had 
drawn Peacock's attention, especially through 
its footnotes, to Humphrey Repton, a popular 
and famous designer of estates. He is here 
accordingly introduced as Marmaduke Mile- 
stone, Esq., who has " published many books ; 
sold none." This practitioner and all his works, 
the " thin, meagre genius of the bare and bald," 
were the pet aversion of Pa3rne Knight, who 
held in especial horror the " pagodas and 

133 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Chinese bridges, gravel-walks, and shrubberies, 
bowling-greens, canals and clumps of larch," 

the formal lump 
Which the improver plants and calls a clump^ 
wherewith Mr. Milestone proposes to decorate 
the grounds of Venison Hall. His speech, 
" One age, sir, has drawn to light the treasures 
of ancient learning," repeated in Headlong Hall, 
is a parody of Repton's pompous style and 
pretentious assertions. His Plan for Lord 
Littlebrain's Park is Repton's published Plan 
for Tatton Park. 

Landscape gardening then is the first object 
of Peacock's satire. His intense love of wild 
natural scenery caused him to think lightly of 
the art of the improver of nature, and perhaps 
blinded him to its possibihties. Yet it is but 
one mode of that formalism to which, at the time 
he wrote the plays, he was still attached in 
literature. It found perhaps its last outlet in 
this application to the crust of the earth : it 
came so late in time that its true character was 
not perceived, and it was regarded as a fad of 
the new school. Even Wordsworth interested 
himself in it, thus loudly proclaiming the 
insufl&ciency of " nature " to minister to the 
aesthetic wants of man. Formality in wit had 
been perfected in the age of Pope ; it was 

134 ^ 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

developed in another direction by Sheridan, 
and is to be found in a still different guise 
scattered in patches over the prose works of 
Peacock. Landscape gardening, rightly called 
by some of its professors the manufacturing of 
landscapes, is formality in nature. 

Both in theory and practice this art afforded 
plenty of scope for quarrelling among the 
professors, and Milestone, who has in the play 
a rival in love, is in the novel confronted with 
a hostile critic. Sir Patrick O'Prism — that is 
to say, Sir Uvedale Price. Milestone's methods 
were old-fashioned. His pagodas and bridges, 
canals, giants and bowling greens, are remnants 
of oriental gardening. His aims are more anti- 
natural, and consequently less pretentious, than 
those of the school which succeeded him. The 
new men could dispense with much of his extra- 
neous ornamentation : they attempted, not to 
supply an alternative to nature, but to coerce 
her and make her submit to form. 

Better known as a writer than as a painter. 
Price is yet appropriately introduced in the 
latter capacity, since his particular attack on 
the modish gardeners and designers of the day 
was based on the contention that their works 
violated the laws of art. He not only pleaded 
in favour of the picturesque beauty of natural 

135 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Bcenery, but endeavoured to show that the land- 
scape makers acted on principles opposed to 
those of all the best landscape painters. A 
good-natured controversy was carried on between 
him and Repton on this point. Equally academic 
but more acrimonious was his dispute with Payne 
Knight concerning the distinction between the 
Picturesque and the Beautiful. Knight asserted 
their identity, treating Price's theory with scant 
courtesy. Jeffrey in an article in the Edin- 
burgh Review attempted to sum up and say 
the last word on the subject. Commenting on 
the theory that beauty is inherent in perceptions 
of smoothness and repose, and picturesqueness 
in those of roughness and excitement, he adds 
that there is a third source of pleasure, " a 
refined degree of novelty . . . for which we shall 
venture to coin the name of unexpectedness,^^ 
As Mr. Gall he makes this profound statement 
when walking round the grounds of Headlong 
Hall. Peacock cared so Uttle for the contro- 
versy itseK that he actually misstates Price's 
case : he was only anxious to work in a hit at 
Jeffrey, and so asks him how he would define 
this quality " when a person walks round the 
grounds for the second time ? " It is not 
likely that Jeffrey would have been posed by 
this question ; but he was not put into the book 

136 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

to make sport for himself, but for others, and 
is left biting his lip and vowing journalistic 
vengeance. 

There remain to be noticed two curious works 
in ballad form, one as simple and plain as the 
other is overloaded and obscure. Sir Hornbook, 
called in the sub-title a Grammatico-allegorical 
Ballad, was composed for children. It describes 
the progress of Childe Launcelot, guided by- 
Sir Hornbook, and supported by twenty-six men 
— " The first that came was mighty A, The last 
was little z," — under Corporal Syllable and 
Captain Word, along the road to knowledge. 
Their encounter with the Parts of Speech is 
felicitously narrated in excellent ballad style. 
Sir Hornbook helps the Childe to conquer Sir 
Syntax, who offers the stoutest resistance of all. 
Having passed him, 

They reached the tree where Prosody 

Was singing in the shade : 
Great joy Childe Launcelot had, to see 

And hear that lovely maid. 

Last of all they find the Muses' gates, guarded 
by Etymology, 

Who ever dug in deepest ground 
For old and mouldy roots. 

Sir Hornbook took Childe Launcelot's hand. 
And tears at parting fell : 

137 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

" Sir Childe," he said, " with all my band 
I bid you here farewell. 

" Then wander through these sacred bowers, 

Unfearing and alone : 
All shrubs are here, and fruits, and flowers. 

To happiest climates known." 

Once more his horn Sir Hornbook blew, 

A parting signal shrill : 
His merrymen all, so stout and true. 

Went marching down the hill. 

This little piece alone would prove that Peacock 
could write a ballad. Three years later he pub- 
lished The Round Table* another poem for 
children, introducing all the Kings of England^ 
with appropriate historical allusions. Though 
not without merit, it will not bear a moment's 
comparison with the earlier work. 

The other work of 1814 was Sir Proteus. 

In his unfinished Essay on Fashionable Litera^ 
ture Peacock justly remarks that " a critic is 
bound to study for an author's meaning, and 
not to make his own stupidity another's re- 
proach." This has been the guiding principle 
in a patient study of Sir Proteus, but has not 
availed to modify the conclusion that it is the 
most obscure of Peacock's satires, as it is 

* The date is given as 1819 in the collected edition bat the book is 
acknowledged in the Edinburgh Review for Nov., 1817. 

138 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

certainly the bitterest. It has been described 
as an attack on Byron ; but Johnny Raw, the 
villain (for it has no hero), is not Byron, who 
indeed plays no part in it, but Southey. The 
mistake perhaps arose from its being dedicated 
to Byron, in a preface lacking even the small 
remnant of modesty to which satire generally 
clings. He is ironically eulogised for " the 
profound judgment with which his opinions are 
conceived, the calm deliberation with which 
they are promulgated, the Protean consistency 
with which they are maintained, and the total 
absence of all undue bias on their formation, 
from private partiality or personal resentment," 
and for all the literary qualities in which Peacock 
thought him especially poor. The poem extends 
to nearly ninety stanzas, many of them contain- 
ing separate allusions to writers or politicians of 
the time. The footnotes occupy as much space 
as the text: they occasionally draw aside the veil 
spread by the verse over the author's meaning, 
but more often they amplify without explaining. 
They make better reading than the text, and 
are good examples of compressed irony. Re- 
garded as a ballad, Sir Proteus is so lacking in 
form and coherence as not to reveal at first sight 
the general drift of the satire, and when this is 
discovered it oftentimes turns out to be of re- 

139 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

markably small account. At the time of pub- 
lication a reader well versed in current literature 
and politics would understand and relish most 
of the veiled allusions. Many men, who then 
pimped very proudly and are now forgotten, are 
celebrated in this poem, which is yet not im- 
portant enough to drag them from their well- 
merited oblivion. The attitude is that of the 
worst criticism of the day, identifying literature 
with politics and confounding both with pre^ 
judice and opportunism. Yet though the at- 
tack is mainly directed against the Tory faction, 
the author gives more than one fierce jab in 
other directions, so that neither Whigs nor 
Radicals could have claimed him as an ally. 
Those whom it assails are savagely trounced. 
It holds much the same place in literature as the 
Epics of the Town in morals. But Lady Anne 
Hamilton's charges against her contemporaries 
are more gross, and her satire is below the level 
of Sir Proteus. 

Yet in spite of all these drawbacks Peacock 
did not succeed in completely hiding his wit. 
The prose and verse of this work enshrine some 
characteristic jokes, some indignant outbursts 
and amusing generalisms, in addition to much 
true criticism and pungent sarcasm ; and the 
reader who takes the trouble to turn over the 

140 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

pages of this remarkable ballad will not complain 
that his time has been wasted. Moreover we 
must study Sir Proteus if we are to understand 
the satire of the early novels, especially Melin- 
court. Obscure in itself, it contains the seeds 
of light, and glimmers in the unilluminated 
passages of other works. Among the many men 
of genius, celebrity, mediocrity or infamy de- 
lineated in this politico-critical tirade, we may 
here distinguish some who are to appear again 
in the novels. 

Peacock abused contemporary poets generally, 
the Lake school particularly, and Southey in 
especial, for eighteen years. Byron has often 
been anathematised for the same offence, per- 
petrated with equal bitterness though prosecuted 
with less single-minded assiduity. Nothing is 
easier at the present time than to point out the 
one-sided, short-sighted, ill-natured manner of 
such an undiscriminating attack. It is only 
fair to consider, in extenuation of the crime, 
that it must at least have appeared strange at 
the time to observe the quondam revolutionaries, 
Pantisocrats, political prisoners — Wordsworth, 
Southey, Coleridge, Montgomery, Campbell — 
metamorphosed into steady supporters of things 
as they were, and most of them in receipt of 
pensions or salaries from the Government. Not 

141 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

only Byron, Moore and Hunt, but Shelley, who 
had tried hard to like and admire Southey, 
fully shared Peacock's views as to the political 
conduct of these poets, as may be seen from his 
letters of the winter 1811-12 : again in 1818 
he wrote to Peacock urging him to give the 
enemy no quarter, " remember, it is a sacred 
war." The abuse of the theory and practice 
of the Lake poets as childish, unpoetical and 
witless was a commonplace of contemporary 
criticism. It may be seen fully and carefully 
set forth in an anonymous satirical poem called 
The SimpUciad, a title which will satisfy the 
incurious. 

In Sir Proteus Peacock proceeds (according to 
the avaricious method of his favourite Nonnus, 
*' whom no poetical image escaped," and like 
his closest English affinity who, in Jonathan Wildy 
for instance, never neglected an opportunity for 
irony) to make not a selection but an accumula- 
tion of charges against his bHes noires, availing 
himself to the full of every detail that could be 
used to make them appear ridiculous or insincere. 

The Peacockian Southey is well known. It 
is hardly necessary to remind the reader of 
Roderick Sackbut, Esquire, who reviews his 
own poems in the Quarterly {Nightmare Abbey) ; 
Mr. Feathemest, who once saw darkly through 

142 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

a glass of water, but now sees clearly through a 
glass of wine {Melincourt) ; Mr. Rumblesack 
Shantsee, a turncoat whose company has brought 
Coleridge into bad repute (Crotchet Castle) ; and 
Harpiton — " Harp-it-on, a corruption of kpirerov 
a creeping thing," a phrase containing perhaps 
more compact virulence than any other writer 
could put into so many words — the minstrel in 
Maid Marian, 

In the notes to Thalaba there is inserted a 
fragment of a country song entitled Old Poulter's 
Mare. Peacock accordingly represents Johnny 
Raw, moimted on this beast, the Pegasa of the 
Cumberland school of poetry, boasting of his 
early epics : lUe ego qui quondam, &c. He has 
conquered Hindostan, supplanted the Classics, 
and set Mother Bunch in the place of Homer 
and Virgil : he has " piped a dismal tale " of 
Joan of Arc. The next stanza seems to refer 
to an otherwise uncorroborated incident related 
forty years later by Jefferson Hogg : 

A wild and wondrous stave I sung. 

To make my hearers weep : 
But when I looked, and held my tongue, 

I found them fast asleep ! 

The story is that when Shelley visited Southey 
at Keswick, the elder poet treated the younger 
to a reading from one of his unfinished epics. 

143 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

They were alone in the room, and after some 
time, hearing no applause, comment or any sign 
of interest, Southey stopped reading and looked 
up from his manuscript ; but Shelley had 
vanished. He had " glided noiselessly from his 
chair to the floor . . . and lay buried in pro- 
found sleep under the table." The weariness 
and oppression of Shelley while he listened, and 
the sweet release afforded by his slumber, are 
pointedly suggested by the quotation in the note. 
After this rebuff (the ballad continues), to revenge 
himself on an unappreciative generation, Southey 
" conjured up, to make them roar. Stout Taffy 
and his leek," or Madoc in Wales, Wearied 
with these efforts and in need of fresh inspiration, 
he calls upon Proteus, bidding him appear in 
every shape most out of keeping with taste and 
nature. Sir Proteus, " that wight of ancient 
fun," answers to the summons, assuming in turn 
the form of all Peacock's pet aversions. 

The first vision is of a political economist, 
probably Bentham, since it is said that Con- 
science is left out of his reckonings. The 
second is a famous character of the day. Sir 
William Curtis, renowned for his gluttony and 
bad education. He had been Lord Mayor and 
M.P. for London, had been made a baronet for 
steady voting in 1802, and was the recognised 

144 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

head of the Tory party in the City. A con- 
temporary poem describes a visit to his house : 

The jolly knight at turtle sat. 
Regaling o'er some fine green fat : 
Ah, Kjiight, renowned for calipee. 
But more for spelling King with C ! 

Here therefore he is introduced " With forced- 
meat balls instead of eyes, And for a nose, a 
snout," and described in the note as " a learned 
man, who does not want instruction ; an in- 
dependent man, who always votes according to 
his conscience, which has a singular habit of 
finding the minister invariably right ; a free 
man, who always takes the liberty to do that 
which is most profitable to himseK ; a man, in 
short, of the first magnitude, who donH care 
nothing for nobody whom he cannot turn a 
penny by." He appears as Sir Gregory Green- 
mould in Melincourt The "patriot braw " 
I of the next verse is evidently the same person 
I as the MacLaurel of Headlong Hall, by whom 
Campbell is possibly intended. The collegiate 
figure, in whom Johnny could distinguish " no 
head between the gown and cap " looks like the 
Learned Friend ; but at this date it can hardly 
be taken to mean Brougham, to whom Peacock 
must have felt friendly on account of his defence 
of Eaton and of the brothers Hunt. Perhaps 

145 K 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

it is a sketch of Canning, who was generally 
known to have distinguished himself at Eton 
and Oxford, and who figures as Mr. Anyside 
Antijack in Melincourt. After one or two of 
less note comes Jeffrey, whom we have already 
met. There next appear three men in a tub, 
Wordsworth's household article, " like one of 
those Which women use to wash their clothes." 
These men embark not, like the men of Gotham, 
'' to fish for the moon, but to write nonsense 
about her." They are Coleridge, Wordsworth 
and Wilson, the latter now forgotten as a poet 
and almost unrecognisable in this illustrious 
company, of which his Isle of Palms seemed ta j 
Peacock to render him worthy. As to the greater 1 
persons of this strangely unequal trinity, one is 
well known as Mr. Mystic, Mr. Flosky and Mr. 
Skionar successively, while the other is mentioned 
as Mr. Wilful Wontsee, and, in the person of Mr. j 
Paperstamp, is perhaps Peacock's second villain, | 
unless this place must be conceded to the j 
Learned Friend. Then Bloomfield comes along, 
introduced by Capel Lofft, and then Moore, 
with a reference to his duel with Jeffrey. This 
is of course an excellent occasion for a note on j 
Reviews, which are treated to such universal \ 
and particular obloquy that it is no wonder that 
Sir Proteus was xmnoticed by the Press. *' Monk " 

146 



BEGINNINGS OF SATIRE 

Lewis may be singled out from a string of even 
less important persons occurring at this point, 
since he may possibly be the Mr. Derrydown of 
Melincourt, The last form assumed by Proteus, 
the most remote of all from taste and nature, 
is that of a Minstrel of the Scottish Border. 
Any ear but that of Johnny Raw would have 
been too delicate to survive the screech of Walter 
Scott. It startled Pegasa, who reared up and 
threw Johnny into the sea. At the depth of 
ten thousand fathoms he finds himself " beneath 
the ocean's root," a Uttle known locality 
described in his own poem of Thalaba, But he 
has not escaped Proteus, who retains the form 
of the minstrel to the end of the piece. Mad- 
dened by the " ruthless fiddlestick," he cannot 
get his thoughts clear, yet composes a speech in 
rhyme longer than Chevy Chase — The Curse of 
Kehama, He and the minstrel remain trying to 
shout each other down. The latter at last fright- 
ens him, and he escapes on a dolphin's back. 
The dolphin carries him to " a wild and lonely 
shore, Beneath the waning moon," the end of 
the world. A voice addresses him : 

In vain my power you brave ; 
For here must end your earthly course. 
And here Oblivion's cave. 

147 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Far, far within its deep recess 

Descends the winding road, 
By which forgotten minstrels pass 

To Pluto's drear abode. ... 

Here to psalm-tunes thy Coleridge sets 

His serio-comic lay : 
Here his grey Pegasus curvets. 

Where none can hear him bray. 

Here dreaming Wordsworth wanders lost, 

Since Jove hath cleft his deck : 
Lo ! on these rocks his tub is tost, 

A shattered, shapeless wreck. 

Here shall corruption's laureate mreath. 

By ancient Dulness twined 
With flowers that courtly influence breathe. 

Thy votive temples bind. 

Amid the thick Lethean fen 

The dull dwarf -laurel springs. 
To bind the brows of venal men. 

The tuneful slaves of kings. 

Come, then, and join the apostate train 

Of thy poetic stamp, 
That vent for gain the loyal strain, 

'Mid Stygian vapours damp. 
While far below, where Lethe creeps. 
The ghost of Freedom sits, and weeps 

O'er Truth's extinguished lamp. 

Such is the first stage of Peacock's elaborate 
attack on the Poet Laureate. 

148 



I 



V 

SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

PEACOCK'S life between 1807 and 1811 
is rescued from utter obscurity by 
the preservation of a few letters. A 
small number of facts of very various 
importance and interest relative to the years 
1813-18 may be gathered together from another 
source, though they will not supply a continuous 
narrative. For these scattered bits of informa- 
tion we are indebted to his friendship with 
Shelley. As incidents in Shelley's life they have 
a definite importance relatively to other facts : 
as records of Peacock they are casual and un- 
connected. We know for instance that he went 
with the Shelleys in the autumn of 1813 from 
Bracknell to the Lakes and thence to Edinburgh : 
that they read Greek together there : that 
Shelley thought, towards the end of the year, 
he was infected with elephantiasis, and that 
Peacock quoted Lucretius to the effect that the 
disease was known to exist on the banks of the 
Nile, neque praeterea usquam ; and that these 

149 



THOMAS hOYEl PEACOCK 

words were " the greatest comfort " to Shelley. 
The quotation, with its occasion and reception, 
like a flash of lightning in a dark place, is an 
isolated but illuminating commentary on the 
attitudes of the two men in this first year of 
their friendship. 

The early part of 1814 was the period of 
Shelley's estrangement and separation from 
Harriet, culminating in his elopement with 
Mary Godwin in July. Peacock consistently 
took the part of Harriet, and was chosen by 
Shelley to look after her money affairs during 
his absence on the continent. The following 
winter was that most mysterious time in Shelley's 
life when he was living in London hiding from 
his creditors, and often separated for a time 
from Mary. During these months Peacock's 
position was most important as agent and 
confidant ; but beyond proving that he was 
living, with his mother, in Southampton Build- 
ings, Chancery Lane, the references to him tell us 
very little. On first making Mary's acquaintance 
he took an aversion to her, as was perhaps inevit- 
able in the friend and partisan of Harriet. Mary 
on her part disliked him with equal cordiality, 
though she was at some pains to persuade him 
that *' love was a good thing " ; by which it is 
probably meant that she endeavoured to make 

150 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

him admit that she had acted rightly in eloping 

with Shelley. Her disHke lasted apparently for 

several years ; but in his old age Peacock speaks 

of the '* cordial intimacy " that existed between 

them after Shelley's death. At that time Mary 

may well have come to realise that he was one of 

the few good friends her husband had ever had : 

I the letter she wrote to him in 1822 shows at 

! least that she had got over the " moral disgust " 

j which she had professed to feel for him. It 

ends : ** Adieu, my dear Peacock ; be happy 

with your wife and child. I hear that the first 

is deserving of every happiness, and the second 

a most interesting little creature. I am glad to 

I hear this. Desolat^e as I am, I cling to the idea 

j that some of my friends at least are not like me. 

Again, adieu. Your attached friend." 

, In the early months of their acquaintance 

i Shellev's difficulties dominated other considera- 

i tions, and however slight the sympathy between 

I them, Peacock and Mary had to co-operate. 

His chief occupation seems to have been assisting 

Shelley at business interviews, carrying notes 

I and messages between him and his wife when 

it was not safe for them to meet, and at less 

harassed times accompanying the party, which 

included Clare Qairmont, in the evenings to 

Primrose Hill or the Serpentine, to sail Uttle 

151 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

boats or construct and send off fire balloons. 
Marian, evidently the Mary Anne mentioned in 
the Hookham letters, was known to the Shelley 
party ; and from a quaint reference to her in 
the diaries kept by both ladies at this date it 
appears that Peacock would have married her 
if he had been in a position to do so. One 
evening he called and was told of the " running 
away scheme " whereby two heiresses, cousins 
of Shelley, were to be converted and " liberated " 
from school, and an imsophisticated colony 
started, somewhere, on the proceeds of their 
fortune. Peacock was to marrv Marian and 
join the party. He gravely consented to fulfil 
his allotted part of the undertaking. But his 
laughter was not always internal. Sometimes 
he would arrive in the evening and find the over- 
wrought and anxious young people suffering from 
the continued strain and want of distraction, 
Clare Clairmont and Shelley quarrelling, Mary 
moody and depressed. On such occasions he 
would laugh at them all, restore good temper, 
and take Shelley out for a visit to the canal or 
ponds. 

Thus was passed some at least of Peacock's 
time during the winter. By March Shelley's 
money troubles were ended. In August he was 
settled at Bishopgate, and Peacock at Marlow. 

152 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

From this time until the following summer, 
when the Shelleys visited Greneva, he was con- 
stantly with them. Soon after moving into 
their new quarters they made an excursion 
together by boat as far up the Thames as the 
depth of water would permit. They turned 
back at a point a little above Inglesham Weir, 
where the water scarcely covered the hoofs of 
the cattle standing right across the stream. 
At the beginning of the trip Shelley was suffering 
from a disorder which Peacock attributed to his 
diet of bread, tea, and manufactured lemonade. 
He boasts that his prescription of " three mutton 
chops well peppered " immediately restored the 
sufferer to robust health, and gave him " one 
week of thorough enjoyment in his life." By 
this time the two men had become intimates. 
They were always faithful friends, yet Shelley 
disagreed passionately with Peacock on many 
subjects and had a habit of speaking against him. 
He said on one occasion, " No possible conduct 
of his would disturb my tranquiUity " ; and 
Charles Clairmont, who visited Bishopgate about 
this time, wrote to his sister that he was much 
pleased with Peacock, and would have been 
more so at first if Shelley had not prejudiced 
him. Clairmont, a willing idler himself, fell in 
with Peacock's summer mood. The hot weather 

153 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

was no time for study ; both men were happiest 
when out of doors all day, and were glad enough 
of each other's society in their rambles. 

During the winter months Shelley saw few 
visitors except Peacock and Hogg. In the 
latter's phrase, this time was '' a mere Atticism." 
The three friends read Greek assiduously, and 
perhaps managed to agree in their studies. On 
their long walks, for they were all tireless pedes- 
trians, Hogg found it very hard to be kept waiting 
in the cold by some shallow pool until the other 
two had used up any papers they might have 
about them in the manufacture of little boats, 
and satisfied their passion for the amusement 
which he " cordially abominated." Their more 
intellectual disagreements are commemorated 
in those of the three philosophers of Headlong 
Hall. 

In the previous autumn Shelley had been living 
in a state of outlawry, fleeing from creditors 
and in danger of arrest. The condition of 
Peacock's finances at the time may be guessed 
when we read that on the day when the Shelleys 
were destitute of supplies, he had only been 
able to find money to purchase a few cakes, 
sufficient not to satisfy their hunger but to miti- 
gate its pangs. In the early part of this year 
his own affairs suffered a crisis when, less 

154 



SHELLEY IN" ENGLAND 

fortunate than Shelley, he was arrested for debt. 
The circumstances have not been made public. 
We can imagine that it was Shelley who came to 
his rescue, as he now had an income of £1000. 
A pension — according to vaiying accounts of £50 
or £100 — which he allowed to Peacock for some 
years, was most likely begun after this misfortune. 
Li his will he left £500 as a bequest to Peacock 
and £2000 to purchase an annuity for him. 

Shelley was much pleased with Headlong Hall 
and with Peacock for having written it. Later 
in the year he wrote to Hunt, who admired the 
book, one of the most eulogistic accounts which 
he ever gave of its author : " He is an amiable 
man of great learning, considerable taste, an 
enemy to eveiy shape of tyranny and super- 
stitious imposture." In July he wrote, as to his 
best friend, asking Peacock to find a home for 
him and his family when they returned to Eng- 
land : " You are the only man who has sufficient 
regard for me to take an interest in the fulfilment 
of this design, and whose tastes conform suffi- 
ciently to mine to engage me to confide the 
execution of it to your discretion. I do not 
trouble you with apologies for giving you this 
commission. . . . When you have possessed 
yourself of all my affairs, I wish you to look out 
for a home for me and Mary and William. . . . 

155 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Certainly the Forest engages my preference, 
because of the sylvan nature of the place, and 
the beasts with which it is filled. But I am not 
insensible to the beauties of the Thames. . . . 
Its proximity to the spot you have chosen is an 
argument with us in favour of the Thames.'* 
This and the two following were the years of 
their greatest intimacy. 

Twenty years later, Peacock turned back in 
memory to this time of his life, and began a 
story, alas, unfinished, some elements of which 
were frankly autobiographical. In the first 
chapter the three young friends are presented, 
at the end of a long day's walk, leaning over the 
bridge at Chertsey. " Associations in one of 
the party had led our young friends to choose 
it for their headquarters. . . . The Abbey Field 
which they had crossed on their way from the 
ferry was the first in which he had gathered 
cowslips." Standing half-way between the 
ghost storj^ in the Recollections of Childhood and 
" I played with you 'mid cowslips blowing " of 
Gryll Grange, it is a curiously central fragment, 
tantalising in its promised interest. But beyond 
a description of the Abbey and a list of changes 
suffered by the town in the interval between this 
remembered time and the date of writing, it 
contains little definite information. 

156 



SHELLEY m ENGLAND 

In all probability Shelley did not recognise 
his portrait, or rather his philosophical counter- 
part, in Headlong Hall. He had provided im- 
portant material for the first three novels, but 
not until the third, where he is represented in a 
caricature with an absurd likeness to the 
original, did he claim the relation. Even then 
it is not certain that he realised what had hap- 
pened. We are only told, what indeed may be 
seen from his letters, that he took to himself 
the name of Scythrop, because he was in the 
habit of writing in a glass house on the roof at 
the time that Nightmare Abbey was pubUshed. 
Peacock in fact never painted a portrait. His 
impersonations are vague and misleading in 
outline, and can generally only be identified by 
the prominent fads, eccentricities or pet theories 
of the real persons, attributed in an exaggerated 
form to their literary counterparts. In Head- 
long Hall he was trying his hand, and was more 
than usually careful to mask the likeness and 
render it as difficult as possible to prove that he 
had drawn his characters from life. With this 
reservation, the treatment of the three philo- 
sophers in the novel will serve as an excellent 
illustration of his regular method when intro- 
ducing actual persons in his books. 

What little personal description there is of 

157 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

these gentlemen is put in merely as a blind. 
Shelley and Hogg, for instance, were about 
twenty-one at the time : in the novel the former 
is said to be about thirty and the latter about 
forty-five. In the stage coach, conversing with 
Dr. Gaster, the Maentwrog parson, each merely 
states his case : they express respectively hope, 
despair and satisfaction. Their talk displays 
no other peculiarity, nor does it suggest parody 
or satire. Their personalities, however, begin 
to declare themselves at the breakfast table. 
Mr. Escot, on catching sight of a round of beef, 
immediately enters on an exposition of the philo- 
sophy of vegetarianism on the principles of 
J. F. Newton, of whom an account was given in 
the last chapter. When man, he says, " began 
to sacrifice victims on the altar of superstition, 
to pursue the goat and the deer, and by the 
pernicious invention of fire to pervert their flesh 
into food, luxury, disease and premature death 
were let loose upon the world " ; and adds a 
particularly Newtonian detail : " From that 
period the stature of mankind has been in a 
state of gradual diminution, and I have not the 
least doubt that it will continue to grow small 
by degrees and lamentably less, until the whole 
race will vanish imperceptibly from the face of 
the earth." This last sentence exemplifies in 

158 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

detail Peacock's intellectual satire. The first 
clause is a statement of Newton's belief ; the 
second enshrines a favourite phrase of his ; the 
third is an exaggeration involving a contra- 
diction of his doctrine : for he held that mankind 
was to be restored to its pristine vigour and 
innocence in the Fourth Age of the world. 

In answer to this tirade Mr. Foster, while 
admitting that animal food may retard the 
perfectibility of the human species, speaks in 
praise of fire, the element of which Shelley was 
particularly fond. Still he is not yet identifiable 
with Shelley, partly no doubt because the 
latter agreed with Newton to a great extent, 
while his role in the novel is to be diametrically 
opposed to him. Mr. Jenkinson then proclaims 
himself omnivorous, demanding only that all 
food shall be good of its kind. This sentiment is 
that of Jefferson Hogg ; its mode of expression, 
that of Peacock. The sentence contains the 
essence of all the many gossipy passages in his 
Life of Shelley where Hogg talks about the 
vegetarians. He objected, not to the absence 
of meat at their usual repasts, but to the quality 
and cooking of it when supplied to a guest. 
Among them he found it better to live as a vege- 
tarian and even, having become accustomed to 
it, observed the rule when alone. But he went 

159 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

back to a flesh diet whenever it was more con- 
venient, and passed from one to the other without 
a spiritual qualm or a physical pang. 

The next thing to be noted is that Mr. Escot 
(while confessing himself to be as profoundly 
ignorant of final causes as the most dogmatic 
theologian can possibly be) helps himself to a 
slice of beef. In this detail, though it does not 
need explanation as a stroke of pure and obvious 
satire, we may perhaps have the record of a true 
incident. Whether Newton were the person in 
question or not, is of minor importance ; but 
Hogg relates that he once discovered " a high 
authority, a defender of the faith " of vege- 
tarianism, one of the Shelley circle, eating stuffed 
veal. The excuse was, that his wife was away 
and the veal was what he had found it easiest 
to procure. Another and a surer reason for 
Mr. Escot's inconsistency undoubtedly is, that 
he is a composite personality. His jokes, chiefly 
at the expense of the cleric, soon make us begin 
to suspect what afterwards appears fairly evident, 
that Peacock is using this character for expressing 
his own opinions in conjunction with those of 
Newton. This again is in conformity with his 
practice in subsequent books, in some of which 
he is guilty of similar confusion of substance, 
while in others he allows himself plurality of 

160 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

persons, by expressing himself through the 
medium of more than one character at a 
time. 

These identifications may seem to rest on a 
too slender foundation. It will be strengthened 
when we watch the three philosophers in the 
society of the other guests at Headlong Hall. 
Many of these are already known to us : Mr. 
Milestone (Humphrey Repton), the landscape 
gardener ; Mr. Cranium (Dr. Gryffydh), the 
phrenologist ; Cephalis (Jane), his daughter ; 
Mr. Gall (Jeffrey) and his friend Treacle, the 
critics ; Mr. MacLaurel (perhaps Campbell) and 
Mr. Nightshade, the poets. Like Mr. MacLaurel, 
Campbell was a late revolutionary, a present 
pension-holder from the Government, and a 
Scotsman ; but the identification is not certain. 
From the very slight treatment they receive. 
Treacle might be almost any critic, and Night- 
shade almost any poet, except those who were 
openly hostile to the Edinburgh Review, or its 
especial victims. Wordsworth and South ey have 
both been suggested for the latter ; but if 
he be Southey, it is amazing that Peacock has 
not mentioned his laureateship, and if Words- 
worth, his office and salary. The name would 
suggest that he might be either Coleridge or the 
same poet as the Mr. Derrydown of Melincourt 

161 L 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

who is possibly intended for Lewis, the poet and 
novelist mentioned in Sir Proteus : 

Like grizzly monk, on spectral harp 
Deep dole he did betoken. 

Mr. Chromatic is merely the musician, without 
whom Peacock's dinners would be as incomplete 
as an Anglo-Saxon feast without the official 
harper. Sir Patric O' Prism we already know as 
Sir Uvedale Price ; Miss Philomela Poppyseed 
bears a sufficient resemblance, in name at least, 
to Mrs. Amelia Opie to suggest the identification, 
while the relations of Mss Poppyseed with Mr. 
Gall and his companions is not out of keeping 
with a note in Sir Proteus where Mrs. Opie is 
said to be treated with too much indulgence by 
the Edinburgh Review, Mr. Panscope is some 
outcome and champion of the " march of intel- 
lect," to which less attention is paid in the 
earlier than in the later novels. 

Among this strangely assembled company the 
three philosophers have plenteous opportunities 
for expansion and argument, and Peacock's 
partiality to Mr. Escot becomes more and more 
apparent. In their next encounter on the sub- 
ject of progress and deterioration Escot adduces 
instances of superiority in the characters of 
ancient mythology, and Foster answers, that on 
that ground he cannot meet him fairly. As he 

162 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

has hitherto shown himself by no means back- 
ward in disputation, this objection is not intel- 
ligible until it is paraphrased, and understood 
to be spoken by Shelley to Peacock, thus : *' It 
is not fair for you, with your immensely superior 
knowledge of classical literature, to use such an 
argument to me." Foster then uses Shelley's 
contention that enlightenment is virtue (compare 
his Address to the Irish, recommending Sobriety, 
Regularity and Thought), and Escot answers 
with Peacock's assertion that the progress of 
knowledge is not general, and that it is put to 
contemptible uses by those who have been able 
to profit by it. 

The chapter entitled '' The Dinner " shows 
the author frankly expressing his own opinions 
through the medium of his favourite character. 
He is now in his element, enjoying an easy 
triumph over his imaginary antagonists. His 
first encounter is with the parson, who appeals 
to the authority of Moses to prove that primitive 
man possessed the faculty of speech. 

Peucock : '* Of course, sir, I do not presume 
to dissent from the very exalted authority of 
that most enlightened astronomer and profound 
cosmogenist, who had, moreover, the advantage 
of being inspired ; but when I indulge myself 
with a ramble in the fields of speculation, and 

163 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

attempt to deduce what is probable and rational 
from the sources of analysis, experience, and 
comparison, I confess I am too often apt to lose 
sight of the doctrines of that great fount of 
theological and geological philosophy." 

Shelley then discourses on the superiority of 
a modern intellectual man over the primitive 
savage, despite whatever physical disadvantages 
must be allowed in the former : " No philosopher 
would resign his mental acquisitions for the 
purchase of any terrestrial good." 

Peacock : "In other words, no man whatever 
would resign his individuality. . . . Unluckily 
for the rest of your argument, the understanding 
of literary people is for the most part exalted, 
as you express it, not so much by the love of 
truth and virtue, as by arrogance and self- 
sufficiency ; and there is perhaps less disin- 
terestedness, less general benevolence, and more 
envy, hatred and uncharitableness among them, 
than among any other description of men." In 
saying these words his eye rests " very innocently 
and unintentionally " on Jeffrey. 

Jeffrey : "You allude, sir, I presume, to my 
Review." 

Peacock: "Pardon me, sir. You will be convinced 
it is impossible I can allude to your Review, when 
I tell you that I have never read a single pageof it." 

164 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

The four literary gentlemen speak as might 
be expected, the chief part being sustained by 
Campbell, represented as the very t3^e of the 
half-educated Scotchman, who mercilessly ex- 
plains the most obvious remark with the complete 
procedure of elementary logic. Li the course of 
his dull talk he admits that he consented to 
" haud his din " on the subject of democracy 
in exchange for a pension granted by Grenville's 
government. A brief argument on the use of 
wine leads up to a sensible remark from Jefferson 
Hogg, who concludes with a classical quotation, 
received by the learned and Hterary society in 
un mome silence. Presumptuous education, 
encyclopaedic instruction, speaks next in the 
person of Panscope, whom Peacock proclaims 
unintelligible. He answers that Peacock is 
absurd : 

Peacock : ** I should be sorry, sir, to advance 
any opinion that you would not think absurd" 

Panscope : '* Death and fury, sir " 

Peacock : " Say no more, sir. That apology 
is qmte sufficient." 

Panscope : ** Apology, sir ? " 

Peacock : " Even so, sir. You have lost your 
temper, which I consider equivalent to a con- 
fession that you have the worst of the argument." 

In The Walk a subject is touched upon which, 
165 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

from evidence almost amounting to actual proof, 
we may safely assert had often been discussed 
between Shelley and Newton. Escot mentions 
" that tremendous convulsion which destroyed 
the perpendicularity of the poles and inundated 
this globe with that torrent of physical evil, 
from which the greater torrent of moral evil has 
issued," etc. Foster answers : " The precession 
of the equinoxes will gradually ameliorate the 
physical condition of our planet, till the ecliptic 
shall again coincide with the equator," etc. Now 
the disastrous effects of the obliquity of the 
earth's axis were part of the Newtonian Ahrimanic 
theory. Shelley had been acquainted with 
Newton in 1812, and knew his book, making 
extensive use of it to annotate Queen Mah, In 
the early part of the following year he enquired 
at the Hookham's library if there were any book 
proving that the obHquity was becoming yearly 
less and less. So he was studying the question, 
in order to meet the deteriorationists on their own 
ground. 

Escot's long disquisitions on the state of society 
are too obviously the expressions of the author's 
own mind to need insisting upon. 

Shelley was abroad the whole summer. His 
long letters to Peacock are almost entirely 

166 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

descriptive and contain few personal references 
to his correspondent, with the exception of one 
or two commissions. In June we find Peacock 
again occupied with Harriet's affairs, interviewing 
Sir Timothy Shelley's soUcitor on her behalf. 
Evidently he had not relished the responsibihty 
of taking a house for Shelley in his absence. 
Perhaps indeed he had not been asked to go so 
far as that, but only to make enquiries and 
report' on the most suitable places. However 
this may be, Shelley, soon after landing at 
Portsmouth in August or September, went to 
London to look for a dwelling. He spent a 
fortnight with Peacock at Marlow, and during 
the latter part of the time Mary was with them. 
Peacock was now writing Melincourty and she 
urged him to make it *' funny." This fortnight 
was one of continuous fine weather, and was 
spent by the two friends in daily expeditions, 
either walking or boating. The Shelleys then 
returned to the West of England, having first 
secured a house at Marlow, where they moved 
as soon as it was made habitable. In December 
came Harriet's death, and Shelley and Mary, 
in accordance with Peacock's advice, were 
married immediately. 

At this time Peacock was deeply impressed 
with the theories and practice of his friend ; 

167 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

so much so that, without renouncing or attempt- 
ing to alter his own, he was employed in thinking 
out as fully as possible how far there was a funda- 
mental agreement between them and Shelley's, 
and what sort of a moral philosophy could be 
constructed out of a union of the two sets of 
principles. His speculations and conclusions 
are set forth at length, plainly to be seen by 
readers who look below the surface, in the pages 
of Melincourt. Thus, while he provided the fun 
for which Mrs. Shelley had asked in the scenes 
of the election and in that at Mainchance Villa, 
in some of the symposia, and in the eloquent 
gestures of the dumb baronet — the original 
hero of the book — there is little or no fun to be 
got out of the composite character which trapped 
too much of the author's attention, the pseudo- 
hero, Forester, in conversation with his philo- 
sophical companion. So entirely was Peacock 
taken up with the construction and study of 
this personaHty that he allotted an enormously 
disproportionate amount of space and importance 
to it. His own absorption in it blinded him to 
the consideration that it could have but a minor 
interest for his readers. In Forester are pre- 
sented, perhaps more than in any other character 
in the novels, the author's serious thoughts. 
Yet he is hopelessly dull, and could hardly have 

168 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

been anything else. Shelley was a good subject 
for satirical portraiture ; so was Peacock ; but 
a coupling of the characteristics that made them 
so would have resulted in an agglomeration of 
inconsistencies which not even Peacock could 
have ventured to put forward as a character. 
Forester is Peacock without his wit and his 
prejudices, and Shelley without his purely theo- 
retical enthusiasms, over which experience had 
no power ; and both without their moments of 
expansive gaiety. His learning is insipid, his 
morality a foregone conclusion, his love a mere 
priggish preference. To this extent did Peacock 
allow the deepest and most vivifying influence 
of his life to destroy the harmony of his most 
joyous and incisive book ! 

For, strange as it may appear after the study 
of Headlong Hall, Peacock now identifies himself 
with Shelley, not with his opponent. Yet this 
seeming change of front is not an inconsistency 
on the part of the author so much as a rectifica- 
tion of an injustice to Shelley's opinions, of 
which he had been guilty in the former book. 
Escot maintains that human nature has degene- 
rated and is incapable of improvement, the 
italicised words indicating the exaggeration and 
perversion of Newton's position. Foster's con- 
tention, that human nature is capable of being 

169 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

made perfect, is only a partial statement of 
Shelley's views. The reason for the injustice 
in each case is obviously that for satirical purposes 
the two men, who in reality agreed in so many 
things, were required to be utterly opposed in 
all their views. On the question of the vegetable 
diet they were at one. Shelley, in his Vindica- 
tion of Natural Diet, founded principally on 
Newton's pamphlet, says that he believes our 
depravity and degeneracy are the outcome of the 
unnatural habit of life adopted by our ancestors. 
When in his Address to the Irish he says that 
" the world is going wrong," he explains the state- 
ment as meaning that it " is capable of being 
much improved." He was in fact a deteriora- 
tionist-perfectibilian, and it is in this character 
that Peacock aUies himself with him in Melincourt, 

He is first brought in, very appropriately, in 
the company of Sir Oran, whose birth and parent- 
age are already known to us. This being is his 
commentary on humanity at large, logical, 
faithful and practical, a man, in short, lacking 
only in man's garrulity and vice. 

The first incident of all, consequent upon the 
drunkenness of the baronet, may indeed be a play- 
ful commemoration of one of Shelley's eccentric 
actions. He is here represented as jumping out of 
the window in pursuit of a chimaera, even as he 

170 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

once jumped out of the window at Marlow to 
escape from an imaginary presence. When his 
servant announced the music master who had been 
engaged to instruct Miss Clairmont, Shelley, having 
mistaken the name for that of somebody person- 
ally objectionable to him, exclaimed : "I would 
just as soon see the devil ! " and thus pre- 
cipitately disappeared. However, this is dwelt 
lightly upon, and Forester, on his return to the 
dining-room, passes immediately to one of the 
subjects of his eclectic creed, sugar and West 
Indian slavery. The attitude adopted by Sir 
Telegraph Paxarett towards his friend ; his 
allusion to their college days, when Forester 
used to talk about " the diffusion of liberty and 
the general happiness of mankind " ; his mundane 
good nature and tolerance of his friend's en- 
thusiasm ; his remarks, " You have made no 
allowance for the mixture of good and evil, 
which I think the fairest statement of the case," 
and, on the subject of tea without sugar, " I find 
the difference, in this instance, more trivial than 
I supposed. In fact, I never thought of it before"; 
all these bring before us the Hogg-Jenkinson 
of the previous novel. But, Peacock's mood in 
this being so much more serious than in the first 
book, Sir Telegraph is treated with a corres- 
pondingly smaller measure of respect. To take 

171 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

the most obvious instance, he is credited with 
more of a taste for wine and less for the Classics. 
A typical passage of dialogue between the serious 
Shelley and the cynical, questioning Hogg, is 
that in which Forester gives a detailed account 
of the early life of Sir Oran. He proceeds : 
'' In this way he Uved till he was about seventeen 
years of age." Sir Telegraph : " By his own 
reckoning ? " Forester : " By analogical com- 
putation." Many of the foregoing speeches, 
especially the friendly citations of Wordsworth 
and Coleridge, belong clearly to Shelley. Pea- 
cock's contribution to the character of Forester 
comes to the front towards the end of the discus- 
sion on Sir Oran. Before making him a member 
of ParHament, he says, " I am desirous that he 
should finish his education, I mean to say that 
I wish, if possible, to put a few words into his 
mouth." This is Peacock's otvti jibe ; and his 
dislike of thepohtical cant of the day is responsible 
for the question, curiously naive in a work of 
satirical purport, " But seriously, is not your 
object an irresistible exposure of the univer- 
saUty and omnipotence of corruption by pur- 
chasing for an oran-outang one of those seats, 
the sale of which is unblushingly acknowledged 
to be as notorious as the sun at noonday ? or do 
you really think him one of us? " 

172 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

As if sufficient materials of satire were not 
already collected in this heterogeneous book, 
the situation is further complicated and made 
incongruous by the introduction of Malthus, in 
the person of Mr. Fax. Forester's description of 
the latter, the whole tenour of his conversation, 
the quotation from the Essay on the Principles 
of Population in a note to one of his speeches in 
Chapter XL., all point to this identification. 
Fax's conversation throughout is based largely 
on Malthus' second chapter and the eari}" chapters 
of the Third Book ; his remarks on the poor- 
laws and on early improvident marriages among 
the poor are almost quoted from the Essay on 
Population, His general hatred of marriage 
and propagation is of course a wilful exaggeration, 
but his " veneration " for old maids and bache- 
lors is taken from Malthus' recommendation to 
" award a greater degree of respect and personal 
liberty to single women," so as to make them 
less eager to contract uncongenial, unnecessary 
and disastrous marriages. As strictly in charac- 
ter is his belief in the efficacy of " the general 
diffusion of moral and political truth " which, 
together with the inculcation of the " moral 
restraint " in marriage, was the only means 
suggested by Malthus as likely to bring about 
an amelioration in human conditions. Moreover, 

173 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

at the time of writing Peacock was interested 
in the theories of Malthus and, through Shelley, 
in Godwin, who for some time carried on a con- 
troversy with him. In the Ught of Peacock's 
hatred of political economy and kindred sciences, 
his respectful treatment of Mr. Fax is astonishing. 
It is also, from a hterary point of view, regret- 
able. It is obvious that he was not prepared, 
even if he were incUned, to refute Malthus. 
Consequently he admitted him as Forester's 
chosen companion and disputant, and lengthens 
out the book with those discussions, which become 
an artistic indecency and ought to be expurgated. 
At his first appearance he comes crashing out 
at once with a doctrine utterly opposed to those 
of the plural-unity. "It is in vain to declaim 
about the preponderance of physical and moral 
evil," says Forester, " and attribute it, with the 
manichseans, to a mythological principle, or, with 
some modem philosophers, to the physical 
constitution of the globe. . . . The cause is the 
tendency of population to increase beyond the 
means of subsistence." Here, then, are the 
components of a witty or angry discussion in the 
author's happiest vein ; but Peacock, for once, is 
not anxious to amuse : these theories are treated 
at full length and with a preponderating serious- 
ness, in a sequence of inconclusive dialogues: 

174 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

the spirit of Headlong Hall is not absent from the 
book, but it inhabits other parts of it. 

The company at Melincourt Castle provides 
a more characteristic conversational atmosphere. 
It includes Mr. Hippy, the indispensable host ; 
Anthelia, not Peacock's ideal woman, but the 
agglomeration of his ideal qualities in woman, 
and consequently a prig, whose one merit is that 
she is unconvincing ; Mrs. Pinmoney (who 
develops and emphasises the views of Miss Poppy- 
seed), her daughter, Lord Anophel and his tutor 
— all typical members of " what is called society," 
for which the author and hero have not much 
taste ; the Rev. Mr. Portpipe, a cleric somewhat 
less debased than Dr. Gaster ; Mr. Feathemest, 
the laureate Southey, who has burned his Odes 
to Truth and Liberty and accepted his post in 
exchange for his conscience ; two penniless and 
unimportant Hibernians, and lastly Mr. Derry- 
down, the devotee of ballad poetry. At his 
first coming among them Forester, significantly 
described as a " bright-eyed, wild-looking young 
man," declares his origin by his enthusiasm for 
Italian and Greek studies and for the education 
of women. A distinctly Shelleyan touch has 
already been added, in the charitable action 
performed by him on the way to the Castle, and 
described as a " work of justice." At dinner 

175 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

he expresses the view taken by Peacock and 
Shelley, and mdeed by most of the advanced 
Liberals, of Southey's political change : 

Southey : " Now that I can get it for a song, 
I take my pipe of wine a year : and what is the 
effect ? Not cold phlegmatic lamentations over 
the sufferings of the poor, but high-flown, jovial, 
reehng dithyrambics to all the crowned heads in 
Europe. ..." 

Forester : " I am unfortunately one of those, 
sir, who very much admired your Odes to Truth 
and Liberty, and read your royal lyrics with 
very different sensations." 

Southey : " I presume, sir, every man has a 
right to change his opinions." 

Forester : " From disinterested conviction 
undoubtedly ; but when it is obviously from 
mercenary motives, the apostacy of a public man 
is a public calamity. ..." 

Southey : " You may say what you please, 
sir. I am accustomed to this language, and 
quite callous to it, I assure you. . . " 

Forester : " Fortunately, sir, for the hopes of 
mankind, every man does not bring his honour 
and conscience to market ..." 

Southey : " Perhaps, sir, you are one of those 
who can afford to have a conscience, and are 
therefore under no necessity of bringing it to 

176 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

market. . . . Poets are verbal musicians, and 
like other musicians they have a right to sing and 
play where they can best be paid for their music." 

Forester : " There could be no objection to 
that, if they would be content to announce 
themselves as dealers and chapmen : but the 
poetical character is too frequently a combination 
of the most arrogant assumption of freedom and 
independence in theory, with the most abject 
and unqualified venality, servility and syco- 
phancy in practice." 

Southey : "It is as notorious, sir, as the sun 
at noonday, that theory and practice are never 
expected to coincide. . . " 

Southey subsequently flies into a rage on being 
accused of writing anonymous laudatory reviews 
of his own poems, and asserts that all such articles 
were composed by his friends, Coleridge and 
Giiford. 

Such passages, and indeed the book at large, 
afford ample evidence of the growing unity and 
serious agreement between the two friends. An 
external fact, showing one of the subjects that 
interested them both intensely at the time, 
and upon which their opinions were identical, 
is the publication of Shelley's Proposal for putting 
Reform to the Vote within a few weeks of that of 
Melincourt, Yet in the account of the election 

177 M 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

of Sir Oran for the Borough of One vote the part- 
nership in the character of Forester is for the 
time being dissolved, and the author expresses 
his opinions through a separate medium. This 
change of method was almost inevitable. In 
purchasing a seat for his protege, Forester is 
guilty of an action directly at variance with his 
principles and the rest of his practice. What 
could he have said to the electors ? How could 
he have justified himself to his friends ? His 
position is logically and dramatically untenable ; 
and during the whole of the proceedings he takes 
a back seat. Peeicock does his best to get him 
out of the way, but in spite of deft management 
the position of his favourite is undignified. He 
sacrifices Forester for a free hand, and having 
paid this price makes the most of his opportunity 
to heap ridicule on the system of election and 
parliamentary representation. The narrative 
with its vigorous irony is insufficient for this 
purpose. He finds it necessary to provide another 
outlet for personal expression, and so introduces 
Mr. Sarcastic, an ad hoc creation, whose utterances 
from the first word to the last are pure irony. 
This change of tactics is confessed in a passage 
curiously similar to that, already noticed, where 
Sir Telegraph and Forester are discussing the 
morality of Sir Oran's candidature. Sarcastic 

178 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

announces his intention of addressing the people 
of the neighbouring city of Novote on the blessings 
of virtual representation. Forester says, he will 
perhaps also make a speech, but " with a different 
view of the subject." Sarcastic replies with 
the significant remark : " Perhaps our views of 
the subject are not radically different, and the 
variety is in the mode of treatment." Some of 
their subsequent speeches are as plainly by 
Peacock and Shelley separately as if the speakers 
were visible and audible : 

Sarcastic : *' I ascertain the practice of those 
I talk to, and present it to them as from myself, 
in the shape of theory ; the consequence of 
which is, that I am universally stigmatised as a 
promulgator of rascally doctrines. . . " 

Forester: " Your system is sufficiently amusing, 
but I much question its utility. The object of 
moral censure is reformation, and its proper 
vehicle is plain and fearless sincerity. ..." 

Sarcastic : "I tried that in my youth, when I 
was troubled with the passion for reforming the 
warldJ'^ 

The speech of Sarcastic to the inhabitants of 
the unfranchised city, on the subjects of virtual 
representation and taxation, is Peacock's state- 
ment of the case for Reform. Earher in this 
episode he remarks that all that can be urged by 

179 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

reason in support of reform has been repeated 
for years, by each party when out of oiBfice. 
Sixteen years later Lord John Russell, in the 
debate on the Reform Bill, made a full and aca- 
demic statement of the case, developing all the 
points indicated in this chapter by Peacock. 
His speech reads like a plain and comprehensive 
account, to which these scenes in Melincourt 
are the coloured illustrations. 

La the conversations immediately following 
on this incident a trait of the Shelley of actual 
life is added to the description of Forester. He 
convinces Mrs. Pinmoney that he is out of his 
mind by telling her he does not consider his 
property to be his own, that it is his duty to 
distribute it as part of the common property of 
society, and that he is " responsible to the prin- 
ciples of immutable justice " for such distribution. 
Sir Telegraph tells her that Forester's actions 
square absolutely with his talk. For the senti- 
ment it is only necessary to compare the " claims 
of common justice " of which Shelley wrote, 
accounting for the disposition of part of his 
income ; for the actions, all will remember 
Shelley's pensioners and beneficiaries among 
his personal friends, and the poor of Marlow whom 
he was in the habit of visiting regularly and 
assisting through the winter. The phrase " I 

180 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

am no revolutionary " may sound strangely on 
the lips of Mr. Forester ; but taken in connection 
with the election scenes it is strictly applicable 
both to Shelley and Peacock, neither of whom, 
for instance, was in favour of the immediate 
granting of adult suffrage. 

Their joint opinions on West Indian slavery 
and its encouragement by the use of sugar are 
set forth in the speeches at the anti-saccharine 
f^te ; though here again Mr. Sarcastic is called 
in to present the case in a cjniical form. In 
reply to Forester 's impassioned harangue ho 
addresses the company, pointing out that they 
in particular, and mankind in general, are too 
selfish and sensual to allow feelings of justice and 
humanity to outweigh the pleasant sensations 
produced by the taste of sugar. Sir Telegraph, 
obliging and polite, counters by offering himself 
as the first new member of the anti-saccharine 
league, recalling the manner in which Hogg had 
readily adapted himself to the habits of the 
Shelleys, Newtons, Boinvilles and their circle 
in the matter of diet. Two new characters, 
Mr. Vamp (Gifford) and the worthy alderman and 
baronet. Sir Gregory Greenmould (Sir William 
Curtis), loudly protest ; the former because by 
this abstinence a falling off in the revenue will 
be caused, and the baronet because such a 

181 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

practice threatens the ruin of commerce. The 
fact that many fresh members are added to the 
league is Peacock's vindication of the method of 
ridicule, against the assertion that it is either 
useless or prejudicial to the cause of progress. 
Byron spoke the same justification when he said, 
*' Ridicule is the only weapon the English climate 
does not rust." 

The chess dance brings several fresh characters 
on the scene, some of whom are easily identifi- 
able. The first is Wordsworth, whose poUtical 
change of opinions and position as Distributor 
of Stamps was regarded by the Radicals in the 
same light as Southey's change from revolution- 
ary to laureate. The reader has been prepared 
for the meeting with Wordsworth, not only by 
the locality of the story but also by the intro- 
duction of the two old servants, Harry Fell and 
Peter Gray, relatives of little Lucy and little 
Alice. The stylistic criticism implicit in these 
names and characters is emphasised in the des- 
cription of their literary godfather : " Mr, 
Paperstamp, another variety of the same genus 
[poet], chiefly remarkable for an affected infantile 
lisp in his speech, and for always wearing waist- 
coats of a duffel-grey." Miss Celandina Paper- 
stamp would at first sight pass unchallenged : 
indeed her Christian name might almost lead 

182 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

to the conclusion that Peacock knew of the 
literary sympathy and intimacy, almost partner- 
ship, existing between Wordsworth and his 
sister. But the next meeting with Miss Celandina 
makes it doubtful if he had ever heard of Dorothy. 
If he had, his information was lamentably little, 
and he makes the ludicrous mistake of represent- 
ing her as the poet's daughter. This character 
therefore is probably imaginary. Mr. Killthe- 
dead has been generally interpreted as Barrow, 
secretary to the Admiralty ; but two lines in 
Sir Proteiis : 

Here Cr-k-r fights his battle o'er. 
And doubly kills the slain, 
point to his identification with Barrow's col- 
league, John Wilson Croker. He was the 
author of The Battle of Talavera and other Poems, 
never forgotten by his enemies ; he is here there- 
fore described as "a great compounder of 
narcotics, under the denomination of battles ; 
for he never heard of a deadly field, . . . but 
immediately seizing his goose- quill and foolscap 
He fought the battle o'er again. 
And twice he slew the slain." 
He and Canning were among the founders of 
the Quarterly Review. Brougham says in his 
recollections that Croker was more useful to the 
Tories as a journalist than in ParUament ; some- 

183 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

thing of the sort seems to be suggested here. 
Killthedead's first speech is a paraphrase of one 
by Croaker in The Good-natured Man, given in 
Peacock's note, which ends : " Croaker was a 
deep poUtician. ' The engine to play upon the 
house ' : mark that ! " He is appropriately 
introduced, in a subsequent chapter, among an 
exclusively Tory company, including Canning 
and Gifford. 

The farcical chapters, " The Paper Mill " and 
'* Cimmerian Lodge," are the outcome of Pea- 
cock's personal prejudices, the latter especially 
being untinged with Shelley's critical interest 
in the subject of the satire. Coleridge was one 
of the few poets of note really in sympathy with 
Shelley. He told Hogg he regretted very much 
that Shelley, who went to call on him soon after 
leaving Oxford, found him absent and was 
received by Southey instead. " I might have 
been of some use to him," he said, " and Southey 
could not ; for I should have sympathised with 
his poetics, metaphysical reveries, etc." And 
some years later Shelley, in a letter from abroad, 
asks for literary news, adding that by this he 
means primarily news of Coleridge. But in 
Melincourt Coleridge is only just recognisable as 
Mr. Mystic, rowing in dense fog over the Ocean 
of Deceitful Form to the Island of Pure Intelli- 

184 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

gence, talking unintelligible metaphysics, and 
put to rout by an explosion of his own gas. From 
this point onward Peacock identij&es himself 
more exclusively with Forester, and Shelley's 
part in the character is forgotten or neglected. 
The most noticeable of his remaining conversa- 
tions with Mr. Fax is that in the short chapter 
entitled " The Mountains," in which the author 
justifies his love of solitude. The scene of bur- 
lesque and violence, bringing the friends again 
into the company of Sir Gregory Greenmould 
and enabling Sir Oran to perform one of those 
acts of natural justice which are his glory and 
delight, alone interposes between this talk and 
their arrival at Mainchance Villa. The scene 
here described, unlike many of the preceding, 
is more than an episode. It is an incident second 
only in importance to that of the election, from 
which it is separated by too long a stretch of 
unconnected discussions. 

If Headlong Hall resounded to the merriment 
of Peacock at the expense of the Edinburgh 
reviewers, among the Tories at Mainchance Villa 
his laughter is that of a giant. His joy verges 
on frenzy. In this immortal chapter, perhaps 
the most purely Aristophanic production of his 
comic genius. Fax and Forester meet and join 
issues with the sacred band of obscurantists and 

185 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

reactionaries. A fresh character now appears 
on the scene — Canning. Owing to a curious 
anticipatory reputation, the shadowy basis of 
many frustrated hopes, this statesman may be 
said to have walked into the House of Commons, 
when little more than a boy, with the stigma of 
a turn-coat. Never a thorough-going party man, 
he suffered throughout his career from judgments 
passed upon him not as an eclectic politician 
but as a defective partisan. An official Tory, | 
co-founder and mainstay of both the Anti- 
Jacobin and the Quarterly^ opposed to Parha- 
mentary Reform, yet with reforming tendencies 
in other directions that shocked and alienated 
his party, he was regarded by the various sections 
as a revolutionary, a mouLntebank or a reactionary 
scaremonger. In the summer of 1816, when 
Peacock was writing Melincourt^ Canning had 
just come to London after an absence of two years 
in Portugal and the South of France. He is 
accordingly introduced as Mr. Anyside Anti- 
jack, " a very important personage just returned 
from abroad on the occasion of a letter " from 
Mr. Coleridge, *' denouncing an approaching 
period of public light," which had filled Messieurs 
Wordsworth, Southey, Gifford and Croker with 
the deepest dismay ; *' and they were now 
holding a consultation as to the best means to 

186 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

be adopted for totally and finally extinguishing 
the light of the human understanding." 

The guests whom chance has brought to the 
door of this conclave — and who, it must be re- 
membered, are the social and political reformer, 
the economist and political moralist, and the 
natural, undebased man — cannot be introduced 
until the meeting is over. Meanwhile they are 
received by Miss Celandina and Mr. Derrydown, 
who immediately shoots an arrow of literary 
criticism, barbed with morality, by explaining 
the " family group " of Mother Goose, Margery 
Daw, Jack, Jill, and Jack Horner, each with a 
finger in the Christmas pie, interpreted as the 
public purse. When the meeting is broken up 
the guests are brought in and the party sits 
down to dinner, and to wine, the unmasker of 
persons. 

At this stage, the bottle having been judiciously 
circulated by Mr. Derrydown, who is anxious to 
discover the nature of the secret deliberations, 
the conversation begins, on a basis of quotations 
from the Qtuirterly, with question and comment 
from the visitors. In reading this chapter it is 
difficult to believe that Peacock has not exag- 
gerated and misrepresented the writer in the 
Quarterly as much as he has travestied the 
characters of Wordsworth and Southey. But 

187 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

any reader who is curious enougli to look up 
No. XXXI of the Review will find on the contrary 
that he has dealt soberly and faithfully with his 
material. He has of course selected the choicest 
morsels from the mass, but he has not misquoted 
or given them an intention that would be contra- 
dicted by their original context. In " The 
Borough of One vote " he gives a true picture of 
the actual contemporary state of things with 
regard to Parliamentary representation : the 
simple truth was the most eloquent for the satiric 
purpose, which is merely sharpened by the char- 
acter and speeches of those who take the principal 
part in the election. His procedure in " Main- 
chance Villa " is analagous. He has taken as 
many as thirty statements from the official Tory 
organ, all chosen from one long article against 
Parliamentary Reform, and ridicules them merely 
by the farcical presentment of the characters 
by whom they are uttered. Many of the sen- 
tences are literally quoted, the rest are para- 
phrased and thrown into a more conversational 
form. One or two extracts from the pages of the 
Quarterly, for comparison with the symposium 
at Mainchance Villa, will prove the closeness and 
accuracy of the satire : " Of all men, the 
smatterer in philosophy is the most intolerable 
and the most dangerous. ... He begins by 

188 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

unlearning his Creed and his Commandments. 
. . . His neighbour's wife may be in some danger, 
and his neighbour's property also, if the dis- 
tinction between meum and tuum should be 
practically inconvenient to the man of free 
opinions." The editor of the Examiner is " a 
flagitious incendiary. . . . Marat and Hebert 
followed on the train of Voltaire and Rousseau, 
and Mr. Examiner Hunt does but blow the 
trumpet for Mr. Orator Hunt." " We are tread- 
ing upon gunpowder." " Others there are who 
have made a direct purchase of their seats, and 
these may thus far be said to be the most in- 
dependent men in the House, as the mob- 
representatives are undoubtedly the least so." 

Exactly twenty years before Melincourt, 
Canning and Gifford had ridiculed Southey, in 
his character of a revolutionary, in the pages of 
the Anti-Jacobin, They are now exhibited on 
the comic stage together. After speeches by 
Wordsworth and Southey, each holding forth 
on the excellence of his own poetry. Canning 
compliments the two " honest men " who once 
were among the opponents of his party. Gifford 
asserts that " every man who talks of moral 
philosophy is a thief and a rascal, and will never 
make any scruple of seducing his neighbour's 
wife, or stealing his neighbour's property." 

189 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Forester : " You can prove that assertion, 
of course ? " 

Gifford: "Prove it! The Editor of the 
Quarterly required to prove an assertion ! " 

Canning : " The Church is in danger ! . . . " 

Forester : "I am very well aware that the 
time has been when the voice of reason could 
be drowned by clamour, . . . but I see with 
pleasure that those days are gone. The people 
read and think ; their eyes are opened ; they 
know that all their grievances arise from the 
pressure of taxation far beyond their means, 
from the fictitious circulation of paper-money, 
and from the corrupt and venal state of popular 
representation " 

Southey : " My friend, Mr. Coleridge, holds 
that it is a very bad thing for the people to read : 
so certainly it is. . . . An ignorant man, judging 
from instinct, judges much better than a man 
who reads and is consequently misinformed." 

Gifford : " Unless he reads the Quarterly, ^^ 

Wordsworth : " Darkness ! Darkness ! Jack 
the giant-killer's coat of darkness ! That is 
your only wear." 

Canning says that the people are loyal and 
willing to be led. Forester asks. Why was a war 
undertaken, in that case, to avert revolution ? 
Canning answers that war was preferable to 

190 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

Reform, which it succeeded in shelving ; and 
adds two of the commonest anti-reform arguments 
of the day, first, that although some of the 
practices connected with parliamentary re- 
presentation may be admitted to be wrong, it 
is false to say that any harm to the legislature 
arises from them ; and second, that many of 
the most zealous Reformers owed their seats in 
the House of Commons to those very conditions 
which they proposed to abolish. The latter 
argument was actually used by Canning in the 
House of Commons. 

Croker and the rest having worked themselves 
into a frenzy of scare about the danger to Church 
and State, Canning declares that there is a great 
blunderbuss that is to blow the nation to atoms. 
" Saying these words he produced a pop-gun 
from his pocket, and shot off a paper pellet " 
in the ear of Mr. Wordsworth, " which made 
the latter spring up in sudden fright, to the 
irremediable perdition of a decanter of Sherris 
Sack," over which Mr. Southey lamented bitterly. 
This commemorates a scaremongering exploit 
of Canning's in the House, the source, according 
to Peacock and others, of disappointment and 
chagrin in his party and of unquenchable laughter 
among his opponents. In a speech on the 
" daring and extravagant projects " of reform, 

191 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

he said : " The projects of innovation do not 
rest with parliaments and governments ; the 
projectors would, in the end, shear property to 
the quick. This is no conjecture of mine ; nor 
is it merely the day-dream of ignorant and 
ilUterate men. The purpose is avowed : it ia 
detailed and reasoned upon, in a pamphlet which 
I hold in my hand, with no contemptible degree 
of intelligence and dexterity. ... Hear, then, 
the ingenuous Creed of the Patriots of the 
Soil ..." The pamphlet, which he had hoped 
would rouse the House to a sense of national 
danger, but which only succeeded in amusing 
or annoying his hearers, was a socialistic tract 
entitled "Christian Policy the Salvation of the 
Empire," one of the pubhcations of the Society 
of Spencean Philanthropists. Sentences such as 
" Landlords are the only oppressors of the 
people " provoked, in those days, laughter with- 
out resentment. 

The incident of the pop-gun is followed by more 
party statements and abuse of reformers. Fax 
and Forester interpose logical protests. The 
five Tories are too far gone in merriment, satis- 
faction and drink, to heed them. The voices 
of the guests are drowned by the Quintetto in 
which each member of the secret council bawls 
a hynm to himself and his party. 

192 



SHELLEY IN ENGLAND 

Is it surprising that in their last conversation, 
on the way from Mainchance Villa to Alga Castle, 
Messieurs Fax and Forester are more than 
usually despondent for the hopes of the world ? 
Before parting, they come to an agreement on 
one point, namely, that the only path of real 
utility is " the general diffusion of moral and 
political truth." 



193 



VI 

SHELLEY IN ITALY 

FOR a year after the publication of Melin- 
court the intimacy with Shelley was 
kept close. Till his final departure 
from England he remained at Marlow, and 
he and Peacock continued their walks 
and river excursions as in the previous 
summer. Sometimes they would walk the 
thirty-two miles to London, sta3dng there two 
nights and walking back on the third day. It 
was, however, a productive year for both, Shelley 
writing the Revolt of Islam, and Peacock Ehodo- 
daphne and Nightmare Abbey, As before, Hogg 
was the most frequent addition to the party, 
but the Hunts and Godwin, to whom Shelley 
had introduced Melincourt and its author, were 
often included. We read of an excursion to 
Bisham Wood and by water to Medmenham 
Abbey made by Peacock, Godwin and Shelley 
in April ; and of Hunt and Peacock inducing 
the unwilUng poet to accompany them to the 
opera and the theatre during a visit he paid to 

194 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Godwin in London. An indication that Greek 
studies were stiU pursued in common is afforded 
by the fact that in December Shelley wrote to 
London ordering the Dionysiaca of Nonnus. 

Some account of Shelley's society at Marlow, 
carefully circumscribed and non-prejudicial to 
any parties concerned, is given in the Memoir, 
Other stories of a more unguarded nature were 
current in the neighbourhood. Miss Mitford 
heard some of these from a garrulous person, 
alluded to as Mr. J., who lived at Marlow and 
claimed to be intimately known to Peacock and 
Shelley and acquainted with " all the new 
school." According to him, Leigh Hunt con- 
stantly appeared on the scene with requests 
for assistance, nor would he be denied ; for on 
one occasion, finding Shelley either absent or 
moneyless, he carried away a cartload of furniture 
wherewith to raise the wind. A similar errand 
would bring Godwin down from London : he 
would hold a knife in his hand, threatening to 
stab himself if SheUey would not advance him 
money on his bills. On such occasions, the 
story went, Shelley would send for Peacock to 
protect him. These statements cannot now be 
quantitatively analysed into their components 
of truth and falsehood : they are only valuable 
in so far as they throw light upon contemporary 

195 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

opinion as to the nature of the friendship between 
Shelley and Peacock. 

During the last days spent by the Shelleys in 
England, Peacock, with Hogg, Hunt and Horace 
Smith, was constantly with him at his lodgings 
in Covent Garden ; and Mary was occupied for 
some of the time in copying out her husband's 
review of Bhododaphne — a fitting atonement 
according to poetic justice for the maUcious 
remarks made by her some six months earHer 
about its author. None of the party could have 
suspected that they were then to say goodbye 
to Shelley for ever ; yet farewells are always 
unpleasant. The pain of this was spared to them. 
They supped together on his last evening in 
England, and Shelley, who had been sleeping 
badly at nights, fell into a deep slumber. The 
guests crept away without disturbing him, and 
he left for Dover early in the morning. 

After the departure of Shelley and of the 
society which his Hving there had attracted to 
Marlow, Peacock very naturally felt lonely, and 
contemplated a removal ; but circumstances, 
which also prevented his visiting his friend in 
Italy, compelled him to remain where he was. 
As a result of this restriction, the year 1818 was 
the most fruitful of his literary life. Rhodo- 
daphne was finished in March and Nightmare 

196 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Abbey in July ; the Essay on Fashionable 
Literature occupied his spare time in August, 
and all but the last three chapters of Maid Marian 
were written between October and December. 

In Nightmare Abbey he wrote of Shelley for 
the third time, and made of him, what a more 
superficial or less intimate observer might have 
seen in him at the first meeting — a hero of 
comedy. Although Mr. Foster is but a puppet 
with a theme, and Mr. Forester an artistic failure, 
and neither character can be said to add anything 
to his literary achievement, it is no small testi- 
mony to the soundness of Peacock's head and 
heart that he should have made a serious study 
of SheUey's philosophy and moral character, 
and partly devoted two books to them, before 
writing the story of Scythrop, a playful caricature 
calling attention to his more obviously eccentric 
habits, making use, for the purposes of the plot, of 
some of the most striking incidents of his Ufe. 

It is a commonplace of Peacockian criticism 
to point out how " unfair " and " ungenerous " 
are the portraits contained in Vamp, Feathemest, 
and the rest. To represent Southey as a time- 
server, Wordsworth as a drunkard. Canning as 
a canting hypocrite and Gifford as a canting 
fool, was (say the moralists) unpardonable. Yet 
little or no exception has been taken to the 

197 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

character of Scythrop, though a similar line of 
reasoning would condemn Peacock as the basest 
of traitors and ingrates for painting his best 
friend, the abstemious and spiritual Shelley 
who could stand alone against the world, as a 
drunkard and a moral and physical coward. 
And the silence of the critics on the second count 
is a refutation of their charges on the first ; they 
have mistaken caricature for attempted por- 
traiture. This, as has already been remarked, 
was never Peacock's aim. Just as Mr. Paper- 
stamp, for instance, is not either the man or the 
poet Wordsworth, but a selection of those of his 
views, circumstances and attributes which lent 
themselves readily to ridicule or censure, so 
Scythrop is but a grotesque projection of the 
youthful Shelley in certain attitudes. Owing 
to the dull tracts in Melincourt and the still 
preponderating Toryism of England, readers have 
perhaps approached the scene at Mainchance 
Villa in a grumbling and quarrelsome mood ; 
but pure comedy is more commonly popular 
than even the most entertaining poUticial satire, 
and Nightmare Abbey has had the good fortune 
of being generally well received, both by con- 
temporaries and posterity. An appreciation 
which should not be overlooked is that of Miss 
Mitford, That kindly and sympathetic lady 

198 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

laughed heartily at the book, and not least at 
the ludicrous presentment of her ** poor friend 
Mr. Coleridge," though she says that he " fares 
most lamentably." Shelley's acceptance of the 
character of Scythrop is well known. He was 
kept informed of the progress of the book while 
it was being written, and on hearing of its com- 
pletion sent Peacock the quotation from Ben 
Jonson, inserted after the motto from Butler 
chosen by the author. 

Shelley is then the hero of Nightmare Abbey ; 
yet, repeating his procedure in Headlong Hall, 
Peacock is careful to pack into the first pages of 
the book a number of facts and descriptive 
touches, enabling any interested party to contra- 
dict the identification of Scythrop with his ori- 
ginal. The account of Scythrop' s college life, 
of his festive drinking and dancing in London ; 
the fact of his being the only child of a father of 
Mr. Glowry's temperament and a calculating, 
disappointed, misanthropic mother who had 
died in his infancy ; the very fact of his living 
under his father's roof — all these are thrown 
out to cover up the trail at the start. But in 
the first reported scrap of conversation Scythrop 
distinctly quotes Shelley. His father, to console 
him in his grief for a lost love, reads him a 
commentary on Ecclesiastes, dwelling particu- 

199 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

larly on the text : " One man among a thousand 
have I found, but a woman amongst all those 
have I not foimd " ; and Scythrop answers : 
" How could he expect it, when the whole thou- 
sand were locked up in his seraglio ? His ex- 
perience is no precedent for a free state of society 
like that in which we live." This is a paraphrase 
of what Shelley wrote in his Vindication of 
Natural Diet, of the " venerable debauchee " 
who, with his thousand concubines, " owned in 
despair that all was vanity " ; and it is followed 
by his habitual plea for the better education of 
women. Shelley's devotion to tales of romantic 
mystery, and the influence exercised over his 
imagination by Coleridge, both mentioned in 
Peacock's Memoir, are next sketched in ; and 
the " running away scheme " of 1814 has its 
counterpart in Scythrop' s intention of founding 
a perfect republic with the help of a few fellow- 
eleutherarchs. The treatise which he wrote and 
pubUshed in order " to feel the pulse of the wisdom 
and genius of the age ... on the practicability 
of reviving a confederation of regenerators," is 
plainly Shelley's early work with the character- 
istic title : *' Proposals for an Association of 
those Philanthropists who, convinced of the 
inadequacy of the moral and political state of 
Ireland to produce benefits, which are never- 

200 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

theless attainable, are willing to unite to accom- 
plish its regeneration " ; while the extent of its 
circulation — seven copies — is probably only too 
truly representative of that of Shelley's pamphlet. 

Such distinctive touches are mostly found at 
the beginning of the book. As the plot thickens 
Scythrop is required to recede more from Shelley 
and approach nearer to the character of a mere 
sentimentalist tormented by two objects of 
devotion at the same time. In one of the chapters 
towards the end he speaks the sincere Shelleyan 
philosophy in his remark, that " ardent spirits 
cannot but be dissatisfied with things as they 
are," and in his reprobation of the departure 
of Byron from his own country, where the task 
of regeneration is not quite hopeless, to live in a 
foreign land, where it is impossible. When at 
the conclusion, having threatened to shoot the 
butler for not teUing a lie, he settles down into 
a state of misanthropy and drunkenness, he ceases 
to be even a caricature. He has left behind all 
semblance of reaUty and passed into the region 
of pure mock-heroics. 

The description and treatment of Scythrop's 
three attachments is the most open piece of 
borrowing from actual life that Peacock ever 
perpetrated. Miss Emily Girouette, whose mar- 
riage to another man had occasioned her lover 

201 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

much grief, the cure of which, attributed to 
the *' power of philosophy and the exercise of 
reason," had in reahty been performed by 
" the greatest physician, Time," is Harriet Grove, 
of whom Shelley wrote in 1811 : "She is gone. 
She is lost to me for ever. She is married — 
married to a clod of earth. She will become as 
insensible herself : all those fine capabilities will 
moulder." Though Peacock became acquainted 
with Shelley within eighteen months of the writing 
of that sentence, the subject of it must already 
have seemed far away, as he had been married 
nearly a year to the second Harriet. Scythrop 
is accordingly represented, at the time the story 
opens, as under the influence of Marionetta 
O'CarroU. A comparison of the description of 
this lady with Peacock's own account of Harriet 
Shelley will not only show that the latter was his 
model for the sketch of Marionetta, but may 
prove suggestive in regard to a bye-path of 
Shelley biography. Here is the portrait of 
Harriet : 

" She had a good figure, light, active, and 
graceful. Her features were regular and well 
proportioned. Her hair was light brown, and 
dressed with taste and simplicity. In her dress 
she was truly simplex munditiis. Her com- 
plexion was beautifully transparent ; the tint 

202 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

of the blush rose shining through the lily. The 
tone of her voice was pleasant ; her speech the 
essence of frankness and cordiaUty ; her spirits 
always cheerful ; her laugh spontaneous, hearty 
and joyous. She read agreeably and intelli- 
gently. She wrote only letters, but she wrote 
them well. Her manners were good ; and her 
whole aspect and demeanour such manifest 
emanations of pure and truthful nature, that to 
be once in her company was to know her 
thoroughly." 

That of Marionetta is as follows : 

" A very blooming and accomplished young 
lady . . . she exhibited in her own character 
all the diversities of an April sky. Her hair 
was light brown ; her eyes hazel, and sparkling 
with a mild but fluctuating light ; her features 
regular ; her lips full, and of equal size ; and 
her person surpassingly graceful. She was pro- 
ficient in music. Her conversation was sprightly, 
but always on subjects Hght in their nature and 
limited in their interest, for moral sympathies, 
in any general sense, had no place in her mind. 
She had some coquetry, and more caprice, liking 
and disliking almost in the same moment ; 
pursuing an object with earnestness while it 
seemed unattainable, and rejecting it when in 
her power as not worth the trouble of possession." 

203 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

It is immediately obvious that while the 
physical characteristics in the two sketches are 
almost identical, the rest of the description is a 
good deal more flattering in the first than in the 
second. The first consideration to suggest itself 
as an explanation of the discrepancy is, that in 
Marionetta Peacock is drawing a leading charac- 
ter in a comedy and endowing it with the qualities 
dramatically necessary for the part. Yet when 
due allowance has been made for this fact, it is 
impossible to ignore the likeness between Marion- 
etta and Harriet as she appeared to other 
observers than Peacock, to Jefferson Hogg, for 
instance. " Blooming and accomplished " is 
exactly what Hogg thought her, the first ad- 
jective being constantly applied to her in his 
Life of Shelley, He was especially impressed 
with the lighter and more entertaining side of 
her nature and, consistently complimentary as 
is his tone whenever he speaks of her, his repeated 
praise leaves the reader inevitably with the 
impression that " moral sympathies, in any 
general sense, had no place in her mind." 
Having arrived at this stage in his biography 
it is scarcely necessary to insist that Peacock 
was intensely partisan in all his likes and dislikes. 
His championing of Harriet was as unswerving 
as was his friendship for Shelley : moreover, he 

204 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

writes admittedly in the Memoir to uphold her 
reputation against those who, as he says, thought 
that in order to vindicate Shelley it was necessary 
to depreciate her. It has already been pointed 
out that in his satirical writings he introduces 
many facts and fancies connected with Shelley 
not mentioned in his Memoir, It is therefore 
quite intelligible that under cover of a fictive 
description he should have written more ingenu- 
ously of Harriet than when giving to the world 
her avowed portrait. 

The account of Stella, with her raven hair and 
black eyes, is brief, and carefully opposed in both 
details to the portrait of Mary Shelley, who had 
grey eyes and extremely fair hair. The re- 
semblance between the two is limited to their 
mental qualities : Stella succeeds in captivating 
Scythrop's fancy and partly alienating him from 
Marionetta by her intellectual congeniaUty and 
sympathy with his visionary schemes. The 
irreverent laughter of Harriet and Marionetta is 
contrasted with the serious philanthropic enthu- 
siasm of Mary and Stella. But lest there should 
be any doubt as to the identity of the mysterious 
lady, she tells us plainly enough whose daughter 
she is : "I submit not," she says in her first 
interview with Scythrop, "to be an accomplice 
to my sex's slavery. I am, hke yourself, a lover 

205 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

of freedom, and I carry my theory into practice," 
and then quotes from the fourth section of 
chapter five of Mary WoUstonecraft's Vindica- 
tion of the Eights of Women : " They alone are 
subject to blind authority who have no reliance 
on their own strength." 

In spite of her coquetry and vanity Marionetta 
holds the affections of Scythrop until he suffers 
the counter-charm of the dark beauty, Stella. 
Then, as when Shelley met Mary, immediate 
sympathy, rapidly deepening into irresistible 
attraction, arose between them, based chiefly 
on her enthusiastic participation of his hopes and 
plans for the regeneration of mankind. To an 
enthusiast with such an object in Ufe Harriet, 
or Marionetta, could be, in the latter' s phrase, 
*' but a poor auxiliary." The time was bound 
sooner or later to arrive when he should 
meet with a woman who sympathised with him, 
and then — inevitable disturbance and disruption. 
Rightly or wrongly. Peacock was firmly convinced 
both at the time and throughout his whole life, 
that there had been no estrangement between 
Shelley and Harriet at the time when Mary began 
to divert to herself a share of the poet's affection. 
Nothing could better state his view of the 
situation than the account of how Stella, by 
appealing to Scythrop's intellect and imagina- 

206 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

tion, forced " the outworks of the citadel " of 
Ms heart, while Marionetta '' still held possession 
of the keep.'* 

The final supersession of the first by the second 
love was a painful subject to Peacock. He 
was never reconciled to it, and did not like to 
dwell upon it. In the novel he does not allow it 
to happen, but makes Scythrop lose them both 
as the result of a farcical discovery and recog- 
nition scene. For the purposes of his plot, and 
also no doubt in order to destroy the complete 
resemblance between the actual situation in 1S13 
and that in his novel, Peacock makes Stella 
ignorant of Scythrop's attachment to Marionetta, 
and she, in corresponding ignorance of the 
power of Stella, is at a loss to account for the 
diminishing amount of attention she receives from 
her lover, for his more prolonged absences, and 
for his increasingly frequent moods of silent 
brooding. In despair of extracting an explana- 
tion from Sc^-throp himself, she applies for 
information to Mr. Flosky. 

This gentleman, of course, is Coleridge. He 
is here treated a good deal less contemptuously 
than in Mdincourt ; and consequently the satire 
more often hits the mark and approaches more 
nearly to criticism. Indeed, if it had not been 
BO much easier and so much more to Peacock's 

207 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

taste to make fun of Coleridge than to study his 
metaphysics, his character, in the successive 
novels, would have shared the general improve- 
ment so remarkable in the case of the clerics, 
much more than is the case. As it is, he is ac- 
cused in Nightmare Abbey of nothing more dis- 
creditable than a love of talking nonsense. At 
an unguarded moment (on the part of the author, 
who tries to lay the blame on his puppet) he is 
foimd trespassing in the domain of common- 
sense. More than all, he has the honour of 
expressing the author's own sentiments on the 
occasion of the arrival of a parcel of modem 
books. He must have had Peacock's personal 
sympathy for the treatment accorded to him in 
the Quarterly, By this Review, so strongly 
supported by Southey, he had been, in his own 
words, effectively " undermined by utter silence 
or occasional detractive compliments." Here 
then he has his revenge. After passing a com- 
pendious criticism on a novel by Mrs. Radcliffe 
and a poem by Bjo'on, he proceeds : *' The 
Quarterly Review. Hm. First article — ' An 
Ode to the Red Book,' by Robert Southey, 
Esquire. Hm. His own poem reviewed by 
himself. Hm-m-m." Peacock, then, had altered 
his mind as to the relations between Southey 
and Coleridge since he accused them, in Melin- 

208 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

court, of carrying on a regular log-rolling business 
in partnership with Gifford. The new position 
is summed up when Newton, speaking of the 
advantages our ancestors possessed over us, says : 
" They saw true men, where we see false knaves : 
they saw Milton, and we see Mr. Southey " ; 
and Coleridge answers : " The false knave, 
sir, is my honest friend ; therefore, I beseech 
you, let him be countenanced. God forbid but 
a knave should have some countenance at his 
friend's request. ' ' His conversation with Marion- 
etta is intended mainly to ridicule his philo- 
sophical pretensions ; yet the tone is more purely 
comic than satiric. No one in reading the scene 
feels that he is a despicable person, or entirely a 
fool. It is the same with many of the other 
characters. In this book more than in any 
other of his early period. Peacock indulges in 
ridicule without abuse, and satire free from bitter- 
ness. A genial touch is added to the portrait 
of Coleridge in the " treatise which Mr. Flosky 
intends to write, on the Categories of Relation, 
which comprehend Substance and Accident, 
Cause and Effect, Action and Reaction," and 
another in the five hundred lines which he has 
composed in his sleep. 

Of the other characters in Nightmare Abbey 
some are easily recognisable. Mr. Glowry re- 

209 o 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

presents universal and unilluminated pessimism ; 
but his great friend Mr. Toobad is our old ac- 
quaintance, Mr. J. F. Newton. As Mr. Escot 
lie had been in league with Peacock, being allowed 
the last word in all the discussions. Here he 
is permitted, like all the other persons, to make a 
good statement of his case, but, though there is 
no definite victory, his point of view is efficiently- 
combated by Mr. Hilary's repeated inculcations 
of cheerfulness and forbearance. His system 
has already been discussed. It may be added 
here that a favourite device with him, as with 
many eccentrics, was to quote passages from the 
Bible in support of his tenets. Mr .Toobad's "Woe 
to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea," 
etc., is a typical instance of the practice. As it 
had been adopted as the motto for Ahrimanes 
we are tempted to believe that it was an habitual 
exclamation of Newton's. The Rev. Mr. Larynx, 
as his name is less damnatory than those of his 
predecessors, so he is a more decent person and 
a more genial companion than Messieurs Gaster, 
Grovelgrub and Portpipe. The Hon. Mr. Listless 
is all that his name impHes, and has been 
identified with a fashionable dandy of the day. 

Mr. Cypress is well known to be a caricature 
of Byron. He is appropriately introduced as 
about to leave England : Byron had taken his 

210 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

final departure amid a storm of glory and 
execration about two years before the passage 
W8ts written. His lacerated and disillusioned 
spirit proclaims him at once. " The mind is 
restless," he says, " and must persist in seeking, 
though to find is to be disappointed." He has 
quarrelled with his wife and written a poem to 
inform the public of the separation. He has no 
hope for himself or others. He quotes Childe 
Harold, So careless was Peacock to conceal the 
identity of this character, or perhaps so careful 
was he to announce it, that he makes Mr. Flosky 
say ; " Brutus was a senator ; so is our dear 
friend, but the cases are different. Brutus had 
some hope of political good : Mr. Cypress has 
none." The term " senator " was appUcable to 
Byron, but not to Mr. Cypress. 

Mr. Asterias is an absurd and credulous scien- 
tist ; an expert at classification and a babe in 
his incapacity to estimate the value of evidence, 
who spends his whole life in searching for speci- 
mens of marine humanity, " the orang outangs 
of the sea." He is probably not intended to 
represent any actual person, but merely as a type 
of the superstitious specialist. Several of his 
fellows will be met in Crotchet Castle ; but com- 
pared with them he has the advantage of being more 
amiable and less harmful, though utterly futile. 

211 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Mr. HUary has a small part, but usually speaks 
the author's own opinions. The accent is un- 
mistakable, for instance, when he says that 
Mr. Flosky's remarks have " not much to do with 
Dante, but a great deal with the blue devils " ; 
and his statement of the chief rule in the new 
poetry, " to remember to forget that there are 
any such things as sunshine and music in the 
world," is as characteristic as his praise of the 
" cheerful and solid wisdom of antiquity." His 
instances of the two modes of pleasure — Glistening 
to Don Giovanni in a theatre radiant with light 
and beauty, and boating at sunset on a lonely 
lake — are significant when it is remembered that 
Don Giovanni was the first opera that Peacock 
took Shelley to hear, and that boating was one 
of their favourite pastimes. It is Hilary who is 
chosen to condemn the Byronic attitude as that of 
a man who " will love nothing but a sylph, who 
does not believe in the existence of a sylph, and who 
yet quarrels with the whole universe for not con- 
taining a sylph." We may even notice a minute 
point, otherwise negligible but helping to identify 
the character, namely, that Hilary proposes and 
sings the catch of the Three Men of Gotham, a 
legend for which Peacock had a particular fond- 
ness, recurring to it half a dozen times in his 
writings, from Sir Proteus to Gryll Grange. 

212 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Had Peacock shadowed Harriet, Shelley and 
Mary in the Calliroe, Anthemion, Rhododaphne 
of his poetic romance of that year ? It is a 
question that need not detain us more than a 
minute. Shelley certainly looms exceedingly 
large in Peacock's work : the prevailing tendency 
nowadays is to see him everywhere, under the 
most complete disguises, and identifiable by the 
most remote analogy. An easy way to dispose of 
this view would be to say that its f ashionableness 
is a proof of its error. But not to stray beyond 
the bounds of particularity, it is sufficient here 
to register an emphatic protest against its appli- 
cation to the poem in question. It would be 
tedious to point out the many discrepancies 
between the plot of Rhododaphne and the situa- 
tion either in 1813 or 1818, and the hopeless 
insufficiency of the character-traits in the persons 
of the romance to connect them with their sup- 
posed prototypes. One observation will suffice. 
The general question of constancy in love is put, 
fairly and squarely, in the opening lines of 
Canto II. Is love of such a nature that " only 
one fair form may dwell In dear remembrance," 
or " does one radiant image . . . make the mind 
A temple, to receive and bless All forms of kin- 
dred loveliness ? " If any answer is provided 
in the working out of the plot, it is, that the 

213 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

former proposition is true ; that the authentic 
image of love can only be supplanted for a time, 
by means of magic. Let any unprejudiced 
reader compare this solution with the history of 
the too much discussed chapter in Shelley's life, 
with the manner in which he felt and represented 
the case, and with what Peacock thought and 
wrote about it ; and he will require no arguments 
to persuade him to a conclusion. 

On the 7th of July, soon after the completion 
of Nightmare Abbey, Peacock and his mother 
moved into a house in West Street, Marlow. On 
the day of taking possession he began to make 
daily notes in a diary. They are the briefest 
of jottings, and cannot have occupied more than 
a few minutes of each day ; yet from the last 
entry, a hurried scrawl relating to September 
18th to 26th, it appears that the journal was 
discontinued because he was too much taken up 
with other matters to spare time even for this 
slight interruption of his pursuits. The ten weeks 
thus recorded are referred to as summer holidays. 
" Laziness must not continue," is a remark oc- 
curring in the third week. Yet his was a 
strenuous laziness, and rightly called by that 
name only in as much as his energies were diverted 
to a number of occupations instead of being 

214 



i 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

concentrated upon one. The diary gives an ac- 
count illustrating and confirming those of his 
friends as to how his time was generally spent 
in the summer months, though the proportion 
of it devoted to serious reading is seen to be 
greater than was suspected by others. Many 
of his days were passed partly or wholly on the 
river, often with his mother, and on other 
occasions with books, especially Nonnus. There 
are records of reading and dreaming on the water 
in the intense heat, of sailing when there was a 
breeze, of hard pulling against a strong current, 
of paddling down again by moonlight, to make 
the less fortunate amateur waterman long to 
pack up and be off up the Thames valley. The 
frequenters of the river a hundred years ago, 
though fewer in number, seem to have been much 
the same as their modern successors : on 
August 15th is the entry, " Met a surly old fellow 
in a punt whom I was obliged to blow up." The 
time spent out of doors and not on the water was 
chiefly occupied in gardening, and in walking 
and reading in Bisham Wood. 

There are references to three or four friends, 
to one or two domestic matters (for instance, 
" Mr. Steevens of Maidenhead tuned the piano 
— 85. "), and to letters to and from Shelley, Hogg, 
Hookham and the *' Marianne " whom, with her 

215 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

name spelt in every possible way, we have heard 
of before. It is perhaps only a coincidence that 
this lady is mentioned more than once during 
the days that were partly spent in reading the 
ballads of Robin Hood, in view of the already 
projected Maid Marian. A short and vivid 
account of the genesis of this work may be read 
in the diary, affording a genuine peep behind 
the literary scene at the process of desire, thought, 
inspiration : " August UK Looked over various 
books, fishing for a scheme for a romance. 
6th. Went on the river, but occupied the 
principal part of the day with meditating a scheme 
for a romance. 6^A. Could not read or write 
for scheming my romance. Rivers, castles, 
forests, abbies, monks, maids, kings, thieves 
and banditti dancing before me like a masked 
ball." 

The greatest biographical value attaching 
to the diary is owing to the very full information 
it contains about his reading and writing during 
the period covered by it. Between July 16th 
and August 23rd he wrote all that was ever 
finished of his Essay on Fashionable Literature. 
The entries referring to this work, often by its 
numbered paragraphs, are so accurate that we 
can often tell how many words were written in 
a day. This accuracy also makes it safe to 

216 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

presume that he chronicled every odd hour 
devoted to composition. A rough calculation 
on this basis shows that he wrote very little in 
any one day, sometimes only 50 or 100 words 
and seldom more than 500. The state of the 
manuscript proves that he worked carefully, 
scarcely ever turning back to alter or change the 
sequence of his sentences or to make additions, 
but progressing steadily from point to point. 
The Essay, like all his fragments, is extremely 
characteristic of the author and, having been 
brought so far towards completion, would be well 
worth printing. Following so closely on Night- 
mare Abbey it is especially interesting for com- 
parative purposes in its last half. This is entirely 
taken up with a detailed defence of Coleridge 
against the attacks on him in the Edinburgh 
Review, As with Mr. Flosky and the Quarterly^ 
so here Peacock's ardour is more against the 
reviewers than for their victim ; yet such an 
open championing of one of the Lake school 
shows a decided broadening in his sympathies. 

In addition to boating, walking, gardening, 
letter-writing and literary work, Peacock found 
time in this *' summer holiday " for an amount 
of miscellaneous reading, showing him to have 
been truly voracious. In the five weeks between 
the commencement and abandonment of the 

217 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Essay he was reading Pindar, Nonnus, Gifford 
on the Roman Satirists (a piece of criticism for 
which he has much praise), Stanley's History of 
Philosophy, Buffon's Histoire du Cygne, Masani- 
ello, the Fisherman of Naples, Cowper, Bums, 
Wordsworth, Statins, old English ballads, 
Burke's Letter to a Noble Lord, the Pamphleteer, 
the Examiner, the Novum Organum, the Diction- 
naire Philosophique, and an unnamed Natural 
History. The last entry in the diary is more 
eloquent than any comment : " Neglected my 
journal during this period [eight days] being 
absorbed in Cobbet's Register, and his Yearns 
Residence in America, Pinchbeck's Notes on 
America, the second series of Tales of my Land- 
lord, writing part of a pamphlet on the Probable 
Result of the Present State of Things, investigat- 
ing the South Sea Bubble, etc." 

The last months of 1818 were spent in writing 
Maid Marian, Letters from Shelley show that 
Peacock was also engaged in correcting the proofs 
of Rosalind and Helen, and in writing a financial 
pamphlet, perhaps that mentioned in the last 
entry of the diary, as well as in the " nympho- 
leptic tale " of Satyrane, This was to be a story 
of the love of a mortal for a nymph and the 
punishment that befell them both from the gods. 
Only the first chapter was written out, and it is 

218 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

difficult to see how this was to be connected with 
the main plot. It tells of the wreck of a mission- 
ship and the floating of the only survivor, by 
favour of a special Providence and the secondary 
instrumentality of a cork jacket, to an unknown 
shore, whereon he lands, armed only with a Bible 
and a bottle of rum. These undertakings, 
together with the project of a visit to Shelley in 
Italy, were suddenly abandoned. He still in- 
tended to finish Satyrane, but relinquished the 
design on seeing, in 1821, the announcement of 
Horace Smith's Amarynthus the Nympholept, 
In the early days of 1819 he received the offer, 
subject to his passing in a test-paper, of a post in 
the East India House. He moved immediately 
up to London to read for the examination. He 
had six weeks in which to prepare for the ordeal, 
and at the end of that time received from the 
examiners a compliment, showing that from the 
very beginning of his connection with the House 
his talent and success were conspicuous. Their 
judgment on his papers was : " Nothing super- 
fluous and nothing wanting." 

In this unexpected manner his desultory life, 
with all its busy idleness and manifold occupa- 
tions, reached an abrupt ending. From this 
moment he passes into a state of greater prosperity 
and, for us, of increasing obscurity. For the next 

219 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

twelve years there are half a dozen publications 
and perhaps as many references by his acquaint- 
ance, proving that his old interests had not 
lapsed. For the thirty years following the 
appearance of Crotchet Castle he can, as it were, 
be proved to have been living by a scattered 
series of contributions to periodical literature 
and a few official documents. At the end of 
that time he flashes again into view with the 
publication of his Memoir of Shelley in Fraser*s 
Magazine and the appearance of Gryll Grange 
as a serial in the same journal. He is now 
writing for the sons of the men who read Crotchet 
Castle, the grandsons of those to whom Palmyra 
was intended to appeal. Ten years before his 
last novel was issued George Meredith, his son- 
in-law, had dedicated to him his first volume of 
poems. 

It is not surprising that the first years of 
official life, involving so great a change in habits 
and such a limitation of leisure time, should 
have witnessed a check upon his literary output. 
He never again became a fluent writer. The 
year 1818 was his third of continuous author- 
ship, and its productivity was considerable. 
Literature was then his business. But from the 
following until six and thirty years later it could 
only be prosecuted as a recreation, and his leisure 

220 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

was devoted too much, according to the season, 
to study and to out-of-door pursuits to leave 
much time for persistent composition. In these 
circumstances he yielded to the temptation of 
dissipating his energies among a number of 
articles in magazines and reviews. Diiring eJi 
the rest of his life he produced but one more 
romance and two contemporary- conversation- 
stories. He grew more and more engrossed in 
the business of the East India House, not merely 
in the routine of the office, but in the wider 
questions of financial and general policy and in 
their shipbuilding experiments. 

Correspondence with Shelley was kept up. 
We know that Peacock saw Julian and Maddalo 
and Prometheus Unbound through the press. In 
the eariy part of his life in London he and Hogg 
were in the habit of spending Sunday with the 
Hunts, and passing *' pleasant afternoons, talk- 
ing of mythology, the Greeks and our old friends.'* 
Hunt adds, that they all made jokes at Peacock's 
expense, pointing out that he was now become 
one of the corrupt salaried officials, the old objects 
of his scorn and hatred. His friends, however, 
foxmd that prosperity had not spoiled him, and 
that he was '' very pleasant and hospitable.'* 

From Hunt's correspondence with Shelley 
it may also be gathered that Peacock went to 

221 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

the opera every Saturday ; but " some mathe- 
matician " had got hold of him and demon- 
strated syllogistically that he ought not to do so : 
he was therefore reading Greek on those evenings 
during the hours of performance. The humour 
of this passage may have been more intelligible 
to Shelley than it is at the present day. It 
probably amounts to not much more than a 
confession that Peacock was too logical and 
consistent for Hunt's taste, and was provoked 
by his journalistic enthusiasms into a mood of 
stem and unsympathetic reasoning. 

A commission from Shelley which cannot have 
been undertaken with much hope of success was 
to procure a production of The Cenci at Covent 
Garden. Needless to say, the play was refused. 
Peacock had previously suggested a treatment of 
the plot which, had it been adopted, might have 
made the piece less out of the question from the 
point of view of the Examiner of Plays ; but his 
advice had been rejected. 

A few of Shelley's letters of the year 1820 
enable us to glean a few facts of very various 
importance connected with Peacock's life. The 
first asks him to make what terms he can with a 
creditor, who was threatening the utmost rigour 
of the law against the exiled poet. Another 
congratulates him on his marriage with the 

222 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

" amiable mountaineer." Peacock had given an 
exceedingly brief, matter-of-fact, businesslike 
account of this affair, which Shelley says is exactly 
like the denouement of one of his own novels. 
Here too occurs the fourth and last reference to 
*' Marianne." If, says Shelley, Peacock had 
married her, he would never have seen much of 
them, but as it is he does not despair of again 
enjoying his friend's society. 

In November the Four Ages of Poetry was pub- 
lished in Oilier' s Literary Miscellany. This essay, 
as is well known, roused Shelley to write the 
Defence of Poetry, which was sent to England the 
following March. The only two points at which 
the literary work of Shelley and Peacock came 
into contact were Rhododaphne and the Four Ages, 
the former calling forth Shelley's eulogistic 
review and the latter his polemic reply. Owing 
to the malice of their common literary friends the 
connection was severed at both points. The 
review of Rhododaphne was never printed and 
only partly preserved, while the Defence of Poetry 
was so pruned and edited by the Hunts that all 
references to Peacock's work were omitted and 
it appeared as an essay with a merely general 
appeal — a defence of poetry against attack or 
neglect on the part of the public, from which it 
never in fact suffered. 

223 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

For the remaining years of Shelley's life there 
is nothing definite to be recorded. Two letters, 
contradicting each other in the poet's habitual 
style, may be noticed, the first stating that all his 
commissions have been " totally neglected " by 
Peacock, and the second thanking him for his 
" kind attention " to business affairs. This 
letter contained AdonaiSy and refers expectantly 
to the birth of Peacock's fijrst child. The year 
1822 was epochal in many ways for Peacock : 
the summers at Marlow must already have 
seemed to belong to a period definitely part of 
the past. Shelley was dead : he was himself 
married and a father. In that year he received 
promotion in the service of the Company. He 
brought his first period of prose writing to a close 
by finishing and publishing Maid Marian : he 
had already entered on his second by writing his 
first contribution to periodical literature in the 
Four Ages of Poetry. 

His popularity as a writer was much advanced, 
in the December of this year, by the production 
of the opera Maid Marian at Covent Garden. 
This was a dramatised version of Peacock's novel 
by J. R. Planche, with music by Bishop. The 
value of this production as an advertisement for 
the original work, such as would have been even 
more acceptable a few years back, was perceived 

224 



SHELLEY IN ITALY 

at once by Peacock, who cordially gave his con- 
sent to Planche's scheme. Hookham was ex- 
ceedingly short-sighted in his view of the matter, 
and not only indignantly refused to publish the 
libretto but threatened to prosecute the adaptor 
for infringement of copyright. Experience 
showed that Peacock was the wiser of the two ; 
for Maid Marian, mentioned on the cover of the 
libretto, enjoyed a greater popularity than any 
of his earlier works. 



225 



VII 

THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

The Comic Spirit conceives a definite situation 
for a number of characters, and rejects all accessories 
in the exclusive pursuit of them and their speech, 
— George Meredith. 

HEADLONG HALL" was issued 
anonymously. On it Peacock deter- 
mined to rise up or fall down. 
Whatever he published subsequently was either 
signed " By the Author of Headlong Hall,'^ or, 
like RhododaphnCy anonymous. To some of his 
periodical and occasional articles fanciful initials 
were appended. In thus identifying himself 
with his first novel Peacock acted wisely from 
every point of view. His name was attached to 
four undistinguished volumes of verse : what 
little reputation had been made by these pro- 
ductions would not have materially increased 
the sale of his novel : the appeal, then, was to 
be made to a new public. He was, we may 
safely suppose, convinced by now of the mis- 

226 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

taken direction of his early efforts. It was not 
his intention to make a bid for popularity among 
the circles of the intellectually torpid and the 
stylistic reactionaries who had given encourage- 
ment to his poetic labours, or laboured poetics, 
in the past. His new book was to be read by the 
inteUigent and well-informed ; it was addressed 
to those who were keenly interested in the 
problems and disputes of the day. If it annoyed 
as well as it amused them, no harm would be 
done. It was eminently calculated, not to lull 
them into the sleep of complacency or acquies- 
cent approval, but to wake them up. The small 
and factitious reputation his own name had 
acquired was useless or misleading in the new 
venture. Anonymity was still largely in vogue ; 
the public of those days would not look with 
mistrust on a book, however polemic, satirical 
or intimate, whereof the authorship was not 
avowed. 

Moreover, whatever may have been the 
author's main object and principal delight in 
writing the book, the chief claim of Headlong 
Hall to recognition is its general effect, its total 
capacity to interest and amuse. It must hold 
the attention not only of readers sufficiently 
initiated in the working of contemporary politics 
and periodical criticism to see the exact force 

227 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

of all the sly sallies and veiled allusions, and to 
recognise prominent characters of the day in 
their literary disguise. If its merit lay wholly 
or chiefly in the cleverness and accuracy of its 
topical and personal elements, it could be 
appreciated only in a few pohtical and literary 
clubs and would be valueless as a work of general 
literature. It must appeal for ultimate success 
to the wider circle of cultivated readers with a 
general interest in politics, letters and art, who 
will find entertainment in the conversations 
dealing with the tendencies and fashionable 
whims of the day, in the descriptions and com- 
ments and in the personality of the author. By 
his success or failure in these respects must Pea- 
cock be judged. That the final verdict has been 
favourable is proved by the fact that six editions 
of the novels have appeared since his death. 
When it is remembered that his works could 
never have appealed to the multitude, and that 
the circle among whom his vogue is possible is, 
owing to the changing tendencies in " education," 
becoming yearly smaller, the reprinting of his 
works to this extent shows that he has had a 
steady succession of admirers. The study and 
admiration of Peacock is almost a cult ; but of 
all cults it is the most disinterested and the most 
exclusively founded on personal taste and 

228 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

judgment. It is, moreover, the cult of Peacock 
the artist, not of Peacock the doctrinaire. The 
bond between its members is not historical 
research, nor exclusive love of the classics, nor 
violent political feeling. A tinge of disillusion- 
ment, a little knowledge of life, in the usual 
acceptation of that phrase, may be a necessary 
component in the character of the Peacockian ; 
but his right to the title is based on his pleasure 
in reading Peacock for the sake of his wit and 
his style. 

Headlong Hall, as it marked the author's final! 
stage from bondage to liberty, proclaimed at 
the same time the appearance of something 
absolutely new in English literature. It is as 
fresh and original as his elaborate and formal 
pieces were outworn and derivative. In style 
and manner, in the more restricted sense of the 
words, he still belongs to the eighteenth century. 
Fielding being his most obvious influence, 
especially noticeable in his careful and lucid 
accounts of unheroic events, in the epic style ; 
while Sheridan perhaps inevitably influenced his 
arrangement of the witty sayings of his characters, 
though he owes more to Cicero than to either 
of them. The stateliness and restraint of his 
language in description also belongs to a pre- 
vious age. But any likeness between Peacock's 

229 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

style and that of the older authors is the outcome 
of strong and origmal sympathy, not of imitation. 
He belongs, in style and language, to a school, 
but he borrows from no master. He lived 
intellectually and, it is not too much to say, 
emotionally in ancient Greece and Rome and in 
England of the " classical " period. The style 
which he inherited and absorbed from the great 
writers of the past became his own favourite 
and famihar mode of expression. He made use 
of it in his books, prefaces, articles, letters to 
the papers, and in all but the most trivial scrawls 
among those to his intimate friends. He certainly 
conversed in it at times ; and there can be little 
doubt but that it decorates many official 
communications in the archives of the East 
India House. 

If verbal criticism assigns Peacock to a previous 
school or period, an examination of the conduct 
of his stories, if they are to be so called, will 
show that his method is all his own. It is indeed 
the most drastic, the most economical of time 
and trouble that was ever adopted by a reputable 
author. The recipe is simple : Let there be a 
country house (described) ; let there be a gather- 
ing of numerous guests therein (catalogued) ; 
let the various opinions of the party be as opposite 
and irreconcilable as possible (opinions briefly 

230 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

but adequately sketched) ; invent a slight plot 
for form's sake, bring your characters together 
at the dinner table, and conversation will follow 
as a matter of course, leading to amusing scenes 
and revelations. When you have written enough, 
disperse the guests and add a formal Conclusion. 
Such is the general scheme of the Peacockian 
novel. Headlong Hall adheres very closely to 
this type. Some of the others depart from it 
in varying degrees, but they gain little or nothing 
by such divergence. In Crotchet Castle, for 
instance, the harmony and cohesion of the work 
suffer considerably owing to the unusual amount 
of importance assumed by the plot ; the book 
consequently challenges a criticism from which 
it would otherwise have been safe and which 
can only be destructive. Melincourt is a more 
pronounced instance of divergence from type 
and consequent diminution of interest and 
weakening of effect. The true genial atmosphere, 
with the author at his best, is to be found in 
Headlong Hall, Nightmare Abbey and Gryll Orangey 
and in parts only of Crotchet Castle and Melin- 
court, where the company gathers round one or 
at most two hospitable tables, and the con- 
versation, now amicable, now acrid, now up- 
roarious, but always formal and complete, 
furnishes the main interest. 

231 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Peacock was at no pains to conceal his neglect 
and scorn of the usual methods of the full-sized 
novel. Headlong Hall^ typical in this as in all 
other respects, is deliberately calculated to flout 
and disgust the habitual reader of fiction in his 
own or any other age. The stage-coach with 
the four passengers, who " it appeared, to the 
surprise of every one, though perfect strangers 
to each other, were actually bound to the same 
point," and were to be the guests of the same 
eccentric individual, is not incredible : but the 
details immediately added to this remarkable 
circumstance, sufficient in itself to satisfy as 
much credulity as is usually demanded by a 
first chapter, give a series of shocks to the 
sensibility nurtured in the conventionalities of 
well-ordered fiction. When it is discovered that 
the four interlocutors are incapable of agreeing 
on any point, such a reader feels that the author 
is trifling with him ; the derivation of their 
names — Escot, h o-kotov in tenebras, scilicet, 
intuens, and the rest — ^is little less than an insult 
to the stifl-necked intelligence. The categorical 
method is pursued in the introduction of the 
guests on their arrival, each with an appropriate 
description or a speech in character. But the 
chapters are short, and the true value of the book 
soon becomes apparent : if the reader's heart 

232 



N 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

has not been won by Mr. Milestone and the 
" finger of taste," it cannot long hold out against 
Mr. Escot, with his calm and dispassionate manner 
in analysing the opinions of his opponents, until 
they are all given off in vapour, leaving nothing 
behind. All must follow him with sympathy, in 
his series of victorious conflicts with his enemies, 
clerical, Hterary and scientific ; for never was 
there a hero for whom favour was so openly and 
yet winningly canvassed by the author. 

There is little characterisation in this early 
work. The men and women are types, and 
exaggerated types, whose only duty is to amuse. 
Peacock's progress in this respect continued 
steadily throughout his life, until in Gryll Grange 
he created living beings, whose personahty may 
be viewed in various aspects. But this was never 
a strong point with him, and even his last book 
will not bear comparison with the works of the 
artists in character-drawing. The desideratum 
of a Peacockian character is that he shall be able 
to talk. The best in the early novels are good 
disputants : in the later, they are good con- 
versationists. The talk in Headlong Hall is 
formal, finished, precise, witty, learned, possess- 
ing all the qualities, in short, in which conversa- 
tion in England is invariably lacking. Over 
their wine the speakers make dissertations, 

233 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

trespassing by their length alone on the for- 
bearance of the listeners. Each man is allowed 
to state his case to the bitter end, and is simi- 
larly answered. They grow heated, but not 
careless. They wrangle, and even quarrel vio- 
lently, in rigidly grammatical and accurately 
punctuated sentences of perfect balance. Yet 
we read it all with avidity, for the sake of the wit, 
the neatness and ingenuity in the manner of 
stating the various points of view, and for the 
ridiculous picture of the discomfited and en- 
raged theorists. Perhaps the only one whom 
we would fain hear no more of is Mr. Jenkinson, 
the equable philosopher who will countenance 
neither optimism nor pessimism. The plot, 
such as there is, is amusingly brought to a point 
by means of the skull of Cadwallader, and a 
happy ending given to a most felicitous jeu 
d^ esprit More than any other author perhaps. 
Peacock interests us himseK throughout the 
book. To all the characters he has given 
qualities to amuse and hold our attention ; his 
partiaHty for Escot arouses curiosity about his 
own personality. We have enjoyed his method 
and, above all, his style. But is this all ? Does 
he care for nothing but the logical faculty, 
generally used in confuting whatever statement 
is made in his presence ? From this book he 

234 



THE AUTHOR OF *' HEADLONG HALL" 

does indeed seem to be an arch-antagonist and 
disbeliever. His style is his chief virtue. To 
give adequate examples would take up too 
much space : but there is one remarkable pas- 
sage, showing very clearly his affinity with the 
great prose writers of the previous century, that 
may be quoted, describing the scene which the 
three philosophers had set out on their walk to 
visit. It is an illuminating proof of the graphic 
and suggestive effect obtainable by judicious 
selection and combination of ordinary words. 
It shows also one of Peacock's genuine enthu- 
siasms, the love of natural scenery : 

They now emerged, by a winding ascent, from the vale 
of Llanberris, and after some little time arrived at Bedd 
Gelert. Proceeding through the sublimely romantic pass 
of Aberglaslynn, their road led along the edge of Traeth 
Mawr, a vast arm of the sea, which they then beheld in all 
the magnificence of the flowing tide. Another five miles 
brought them to the embankment, which has since been 
completed, and which, by connecting the two counties of 
Meirionydd and Caernarvon, excludes the sea from an ex- 
tensive tract. The embankment, which was carried on at 
the same time from both the opposite coasts, was then 
very nearly meeting in the centre. They walked to the 
extremity of that part of it which was thrown out from 
the Caernarvonshire shore. The tide was now ebbing : it 
had filled the vast bason within, forming a lake about five 
miles in length and more than one in breadth. As they 
looked upwards with their backs to the open sea, they be- 
held a scene which no other in this country can parallel, 

235 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

and which the admirers of the magnificence of nature will 
ever remember with regret, whatever consolation may be 
derived from the probable utility of the works which have 
excluded the waters from their ancient receptacle. Vast 
rocks and precipices, intersected with little torrents, 
formed the barrier on the left : on the right, the triple i 
summit of Moelwyn reared its majestic boundry : in the 
depth was that sea of mountains, the wild and stormy out- 
line of the Snowdonian chain, with the giant Wyddfa 
towering in the midst. The mountain frame remains 
unchanged, unchangeable ; but the liquid mirror it en- 
closed is gone. The tide ebbed with rapidity ; the waters 
within, retained by the embankment, poured through its 
two points an impetuous cataract, curling and boiling in 
innumerable eddies, and making a tumultuous melody 
admirably in unison with the suiTounding scene. The 
three philosophers looked on in silence, and at length un- 
willingly turned away. 

It was probably immediately after writing 
Headlong Hall that Peacock began the unfinished 
Calidore, It is the longest of all his fragments 
of stories, but unlike most of the rest in con- 
sisting of detached pieces, tlie connection between 
them not being always clear. The portions thus 
preserved are in a highly finished state, but do 
not constitute sufficient data for fruitful specu- 
lation as to the ultimate form the story was to 
take or the probabiUty of its success. They 
have been published by Dr. Garnett, and the 
manuscript is also preserved. The handwriting 
shows that it was written in haste, but beyond 

236 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

proving it to be a comparatively early work 
gives no indication of its date. There is however 
very strong internal evidence on this point. 
Through the whole series of Peacock's studies of 
contemporary life a reliable criterion of com- 
parative chronology is afforded in the treatment 
of the clergy. From the Rev. Dr. Gaster to the 
Rev. Dr. Opimian his clerics mark progressive 
stages along the path from bigotry and bestiality 
to urbanity and enlightenment. The parsons 
of Calidore are stationed very near to the starting 
point. The application of this test might indeed 
almost lead to the conclusion that this was Pea- 
cock's earliest attempt in prose ; but this is 
rendered unlikely by the close affinity with 
Melincourt, first, in the prominence of the paper 
money question in both works, and secondly 
in the whimsical character of their heroes, both 
strangers to the civilisation by which they find 
themselves surrounded. But whereas Sir Oran 
is a silent enigma, whose actions, now more and 
now less than normal, provide a commentary on 
everyday life, Calidore is a highly accomplished 
being, almost a terrestrial angel, hailing from 
Terra Incognita and provided with gold coins 
inscribed " Arthurus Rex." 

He comes ashore on the coast of Wales in a 
little skiff, which, after he has disembarked, he 

237 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

folds up "to the size of a prayer book " and 
pockets. His approach and landing are watched 
by the Misses Ap-Nanny, the younger of whom 
falls in love with him on the spot, a courtesy 
which he as promptly reciprocates. Their con- 
versation is missing. The next scene takes us 
to the inn where the traveller puts up for the 
night. In the parlour are two parsons, not, 
alas, of the genial tribe of Drs. FoUiott and Opi- 
mian, but mean and morose, though of course 
drunkenly. The stranger begs them to partake 
of a magnificent supper, and this, added to the 
ale they have already absorbed, causes an 
expansion and exhilaration of their sulky and 
torpid spirits. Calidore profits by this in dis- 
covering that one of them is the father of the 
beautiful creature whom he had encountered on 
the sea-shore, and accepts his invitation to 
breakfast next morning. Presumably on that 
day, Ap-Nanny interviews Calidore, demanding 
to know what he means by making love to his 
daughter. He supposes that the young man 
has heard she will have a dowry of a thousand 
pounds. CaHdore thereupon scatters a handful 
of gold, which he calls " mere dross " on the 
table and floor. The astonishment of the 
clergyman is two-fold : first, as he had seen 
nothing but paper money for twenty years, at 

238 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

the metal, and afterwards at the " phenomenon 
of a crowned head with a handsome and intelli- 
gent face." This, by the way, is the only sati- 
rical reference to the House of Hanover in the 
whole of Peacock's writings. The profusion of 
coin disposes in part of his suspicions, and he 
repeats in a more kindly tone : " What do you 
want with my daughter ? " Calidore proposes 
marriage, mentioning Venus, Cupid and Juno 
Pronuba in the same breath. The reverend 
gentleman feels that he is being ridiculed and 
insulted : Calidore protests solemnly " by the 
sacred head of Pan," and by the oath apparently 
ruins his chance of success. 

No more is related of Calidore's love-making 
or his sojourn in Wales. The mythological 
expressions at the conclusion of the last fragment 
furnish a sufficient clue to determine the place 
of the next in the general scheme. Arthur, 
Gwenevere, Merlin and the rest of their company 
land on a remote island and are met by two of 
the inhabitants, " one in the appearance of a 
young and handsome man with a crown of vine 
leaves on his head ; the other a wild and singular 
figure in a fine state of picturesque roughness, 
with goat's horns and feet and a laughing face." 
Mutual introduction follows and Sir Lancelot, 
on learnmg that the two strange beings are 

239 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Bacchus and Pan, immediately denounces them 
as evil powers. The speech of Bacchus in answer 
to this piece of discourtesy is a characteristic 
passage of Peacockian eloquence. The Gods, 
he says, never stood in great need of mankind, 
but were fond of them and took pleasure in their 
sacrifices, their magnificent temples, their re- 
ligious rites with the joyous singing and dancing : 
the appearance of joyfulness is of all most accept- 
able to the immortals. But a time came when 
men began to abuse the Gods, break their images, 
miscall them by ludicrous and ill-sounding 
names. They built dismal structures in place 
of the temples and changed their glad worship 
for attitudes of misery and doleful chants. The 
Gods, in horror and dismay at the change, 
ceased to frequent the earth and retired to hold 
a council and discuss what was to be done. 
Jupiter informed them that Necessity, the ruler 
of all — and here Peacock adapts his favourite 
Ahrimanic philosophy — compels him " to ac- 
quiesce for a time in this condition of things ; " 
and he migrated with all the other deities to the 
one lonely island reserved for their dwelling- 
place during the supremacy of the opposing 
principle. Here then they remain, the greater 
deities at the top of a mountain, and Pan and 
Silenus with the Fauns and Satyrs in the valleys. 

240 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

*' Now I have only this to say," he concludes, 
" that if you come here to make frightful faces, 
chant long tunes, and curse each other through 
the nose, I give you fair warning to depart in 
peace : if not we shall find no trouble in expelling 
you by force." The Arthurians, partly persuaded 
and partly overawed, fall on their knees and 
make submission, begging to be received and 
allowed to dwell on the island ; *' for if you 
banish us from this happy shore, our vessel must 
wander over the seas for ever, like the Flying 
Dutchman that is to be." 

Without this fragment it would be hard to 
explain why Calidore should swear by the Gods 
of Greece. By its help, we can easily supply a 
missing section of the story. When the cult of 
Arthur declined, he and his company went on 
board a ship and sailed away from the shores 
whereon there was no longer any place for them. 
They reach the abode of the Gods, exiled in like 
condition. They are converted and dwell there, 
Arthur keeping his kingly state. After the 
lapse of centuries, they send Calidore to sojourn 
twelve months in England to spy out the land, 
and report if there are any signs of the time 
approaching when Arthur may return, and 
incidentally to collect as much information as he 
can. 

241 Q 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

The last fragment, almost the longest, gives 
a glimpse of Calidore in London. He has taken 
his gold to the Bank to exchange it for the 
currency of the country, and is astonished at 
receiving " several slips of paper." The remain- 
der of the piece shows his failure to comprehend 
a state of society in which promises to pay are 
accepted as payments. 

And here the fragment comes regrettably to 
an end. Interesting in more than one respect 
and most delightfully written, it is just sufficient 
to awake desire to follow the strange visitant 
further, to watch the humorous light of his 
simple logic playing upon the ugliness and 
convention of Georgian civiHsation. What 
would have been the course of the story, and why 
was it abandoned ? A partial answer to these 
queries may be hazarded, founded by a hint drop- 
ped by Calidore in his talk at the breakfast table. 
He says that at the end of a year he is to return, 
taking with him a wife and a philosopher. The 
wife is already in view ; the philosopher might, 
according to the author's mood, either not have 
been forthcoming, or have been supplied in the 
person of Mr. Thomas Love Peacock, his favour 
ingenuously defeated with a usurped beard. 
The latter quest would at any rate have proved 
the least amusing of the two. Already two 

242 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

windmills, the Church and Paper Money, have 
been combated by this knight-errant. His 
philosophical encounters are rather to be dreaded 
with Melincourt fresh in the memory. It may 
be that the unwritten chapters of this romance 
would have added little to our pleasure. 

For if Calidore is but an appetiser, Melincourt 
is more like a surfeit. This is the more to be 
lamented, as the book not only contained many 
of the elements of success but does actually 
include some of Peacock's best writing. Shelley 
considered this far superior to either Headlong 
Hall or Nightmare Abbey. His philanthropic 
seriousness led him to admire most, in the works 
of his friend, precisely those parts and those 
aspects which appear to modern readers either 
ponderous or negligible. The light-hearted ap- 
peal of the third novel was not lost on him, but 
even in that instance he was not satisfied till he 
had looked, as he said, " a little deeper," and 
discovered in the ineffectual zeal of the hero 
'' what Jesus Christ calls the salt of the earth." 
He payed the highest compliment, according to 
his own nature, to the tales of Peacock in 
regarding them as moral and political tracts. 
Hence his preference for Melincourt, He per- 
ceived in it more " true spirit " and definite 
purpose than in either of the others. We who 

243 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

live in a more fastidious time, and one not clearly 
animated by any great principle of reform, shall 
be inclined to reverse this judgment. We find 
in this work large tracts where the true spirit is 
manifestly lacking, and where the definite pur- 
pose of the author has overpowered and pressed 
him to the earth. Literary form is outraged 
more here than in any other of his works ; and 
the interpolations, far from justifying themselves 
as passages which we should have been sorry to 
miss, are in almost every case conspicuously 
those which try our patience the most and could 
best have been dispensed with. 

A simple criterion, too seldom applied in 
criticism, will reveal at once the technical and 
spiritual faults of Melincourt. The removal of 
its dullest portions will reduce the book to a 
reasonable compass, while leaving the plot 
intact, and will moreover restore a true balance 
between the relative importance allowed to the 
characters. Mr. Forester is a ponderous and 
gullible person, easily led astray, and dragging 
the wearied reader with him, into the more arid 
pastures of the intellect. Greater blame attaches 
to his subjugator, the merciless and prosy Mr. 
Fax. Most of their conversation together should 
be torn out of the book, including the episode of 
Desmond, the paper money scenes, and one or 

244 



THE AUTHOR OP "HEADLONG HALL" 

two more chapters of the peregrination in search 
of Anthelia, who, to tell the truth, was not worth 
so much trouble. Lightened by the jettison of 
these passages, together with all the notes from 
Buffon, Rousseau, Lord Monboddo and other 
sources, Melincourt, reduced in bulk by one fifth, 
would have been well able to bear comparison 
with the author's best books. As it stands, 
it is the easiest to abuse and decry. 

Peacock's conduct in this storj'^ is indeed 
reprehensible. He basely neglects the legitimate 
hero and devotes pages and chapters on end to 
the sermons and disputations of the pretender. 
An effort of memory is constantly needed to 
enable the reader to realise that Sir Oran is in 
the company of Mr. Fax and Mr. Forester during 
the whole of their expedition. His is but a too 
typical case of the sacrifice of the higher to the 
lower type. His instincts are so much in excess 
of the chivalric rules of courtesy that though he 
is eager to avenge an insult to the weak and 
unprotected a personal affront seldom touches 
him at all. He trudges along, mile after weary 
mile, making no protest at the ill-mannered 
neglect with which he is treated by his com- 
panions. Poetic justice, of which he is so able a 
dispenser, would demand that he should extend 
his powerful fingers to comprise the necks of the 

245 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

garrulous offenders and, receiving at the same 
time the gift of speech, flourish his cudgel and 
cry, Hke the innkeeper of old, " No more of this, 
by Goddes bones ! " But he is silent and gives 
no sign of impatience. It is noticeable that the 
excision of the passages above mentioned would 
restore to Sir Oran his due prominence in the 
story. 

In thus leaving his work disfigured by un- 
essential and uninteresting excrescences Peacock 
is guilty of the sin of incontinence, comparatively 
trivial and pardonable. But its grave blemish 
is in the characters of Anthelia and Forester. 
These priggish and pretentious young people, 
with no humanising inconsistencies, whose dis- 
approval of the rest of mankind is unenlivened 
by any spark of humour, can excite no sympathy. 
Their courtship and marriage fail to interest. 
They are undoubtedly made — and too obviously ! 
— for each other ; though it seems a pity that 
they should be allowed to perpetuate their kind, 
it is as well that they should be out of the way 
together. Could damaging criticism go further ? 
The story, sufficiently long in its essential 
features, eked out with dull interpolated dis- 
quisitions ; the hero apparently forgotten for 
long stretches together ; three of the four 
principal personages insufferable : how many 

246 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

legs has the book left to stand on ? is it in any 
degree readable ? 

That it is eminently so, is a striking proof of 
the rare quality of Peacock's genius. The faults, 
which damn it as a novel, do but detract from its 
value as a Peacockian novel, a literary genus 
by itseK with no satisfactory name to distinguish 
it from apparently similar forms. The personal 
incidence of the satire has already been discussed. 
Directed, now against mankind in general, now 
against the representative system, now against 
a parliamentary or literary group and now 
against some private fad or enthusiasm, it ranges 
from the broad and boisterous to the sly and 
subtle manner. Sir Oran Haut-ton has been 
most imjustly treated and the author accused of 
endowing an ape with human qualities in order 
to heap ridicule on mankind. Such a procedure 
would indeed be but a laboured piece of burlesque. 
A similar method had been adopted by Swift, 
and legitimately used for the most bitter and 
misanthropic satire. His is a weapon of whole- 
sale slaughter ; in his use of it he may command 
admiration but can evoke little sympathy. 
Horses, he cries, are nobler animals than men, 
and men more debased than monkeys. If you 
protest, you do but assert your kinship with 
these despicable beings. Peacock's method is 

247 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

essentially dijfferent. " An ape " is precisely 
what Sir Oran is not. The scientists and 
philosophers have described him, and Peacock, 
collecting and welding their statements, shows 
that they have discovered an almost ideally 
perfect man, a human being who though un- 
acquainted with the arts of civiUsation has all 
the instincts and puts into practice all the 
precepts of true nobiUty. He is the ever-ready 
champion of innocence against oppression and 
villainy. Gentle, unobtrusive, dignified, he is 
an ornament to the most pohshed society : 
powerful and impulsive, he always submits to 
the ruling of those whose reason and familiarity 
with the circumstances he feels to be superior 
to his own. Every detail of the picture, his 
graces and accomplishments, his social adapt- 
abiUty, the propriety of his table manners, his 
taste and capabilities in music, all these had 
been vouched for by the learned authorities. 
Had Peacock added anything to what was 
already common property, the shafts of his 
satire would have been blunted and retarded. 
By his reticence and skiKul handling of the 
character he presented to contemporary civilisa- 
tion its own scientific discovery, the outcome of 
its own wisdom and research, to hold up the 
mirror to it. He mocks simultaneously at human 

248 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

credulity and incredulity ; for while he pursues 
with his ridicule the believers in homo sylvestria 
he has Parthian shots for those who follow after 
him protesting their unbelief. The incredibility 
of a being in whom are united all these ideal 
qualities arises, not from the supremacy of reason, 
but from the decUne in morals. 

The lyrics in Melincourt are uninspired. The 
best and most appropriate is the absurd char- 
acter song by the members of the secret com- 
mittee at Mainchance Villa, giving a neat finish 
to the scene and summing up the political atti- 
tude of the conspirators in the imaginary crisis. 
" The Ghosts " is a jovial drinking song ; " The 
Magic Bark," the most ambitious attempt, is elab- 
orate but conventional. But if the book is thus 
deprived of a subsidiary interest, regularly ex- 
pected in these novels, it is rich in a few passages 
of fine classical prose. The first chapter may be 
cited as an example of the author's style at its 
best. Short, simple in language, admirably 
smooth and perfectly articulated, it is made up 
of twelve small paragraphs and is crystallised 
into eight distinct points of irony. In strikingly 
few words an adequate and interesting descrip- 
tion of the Castle and its surroundings is conveyed 
and this without any effort of emphasis or 
picturesque diction. To read it is to be present 

249 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

at one of the occasional exhibitions of eloquence 
by a man of reserved nature. His habitual 
continence and dread of verbiage are a guarantee 
against the tedium which is almost inevitably 
a result of the outpourings of those whose en- 
thusiasm lies nearer to the surface and is less 
under control. His disclosures of feeling possess 
a charm by no means to be accounted for entirely 
by their rarity : this only adds to their value 
by making them more concentrated and personal. 
For on ultimate analysis it is the personality of 
the speaker that is the source of delight ; not the 
accurate or vivid presentment of the scenes, but 
his suppressed emotion in contemplating them. 
The same departure from a consistently jesting 
or critical mood was noticed in the description 
of the prospect from the Traeth Mawr embank- 
ment. The passionate love of scenery again 
lures the author from his cave of concealment 
in the chapter called " The Torrent," relating the 
setting forth of Anthelia for a country ramble, 
the suddenly bursting storm and the swelling 
torrents which cut off her retreat from her 
perilous position. In an entirely different style, 
but of equal merit, are the descriptive passages 
in the two chapters telling of the elections at the 
borough of Onevote. Though obviously com- 
parable with many pages of Fielding, in style 

250 



THE AUTHOR OF *' HEADLONG HALL" 

and language they are intensely individual. 
Heroic incddents are in the author's mind as he 
writes ; but he does not, like Fielding, make use 
of epic diction and tags of ancient verse to pro- 
duce a mock-heroic effect. In plain and almost 
scientifically exact language it is shown how a 
small cause led to a greater effect, which in turn 
proved to be but an early link in the chain of 
consequence. The comedy is thus objective and 
cumulative, arising from a clear and faithful 
report of an incident, by one standing as it were 
on an eminence overlooking the scene, and thus 
able to explain what was unintelligible to the 
excited participants. This attitude of Olympian 
detachment is beautifully illustrated in the 
account of the attempt to " chair " Sir Oran, 
with its unfortunate result : 

Mr. Sarcastic stepped into his chair ; and his part of the 
procession, headed by Mr. Christopher Corporate, and 
sun'ounded by a multiform and many coloured crowd, 
moved slowly off towards the city of Novote, amidst the 
undistinguishable clamour of multitudinous voices. 

Sir Oran Haut-ton watched the progress of his precursor, 
as his chair rolled and swayed over the sea of heads, like a 
boat with one mast on a stormy ocean ; and the more he 
watched the agitation of its movements, the more his 
countenance gave indication of strong dislike to the pro- 
cess ; so that when his seat in the second chair was offered 
to him, he with a very polite bow declined the honour. 
The party that was to carry him, thinking that his re- 

251 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

pugnance arose entirely from diffidence, proceeded with 
gentle force to overcome his scruples, when not precisely 
penetrating their motives, and indignant at this attempt 
to violate the freedom of the natural man, he seized a 
stick from a sturdy farmer at his elbow, and began to lay 
about him with great vigour and effect. Those who 
escaped being knocked down by the first sweep of his 
weapon ran away with all their might, but were soon 
checked by the pressure of the crowd, who, hearing the 
noise of conflict, and impatient to ascertain the cause, bore 
down from all points upon a common centre, and formed a 
circumferential pressiu-e that effectually prohibited the 
egress of those within ; and they, in their turn, in their 
eagerness to escape from Sir Oran (who like Artegall's 
Iron Man, or like Ajax among the Trojans, or like 
Rodomonte in Paris, or like Orlando among the soldiers 
of Agramant, kept clearing for himself an ample space in 
the midst of the encircling crowd), waged desperate con- 
flict with those without ; so that from the equal and 
opposite action of the contripetal and centrifugal forces 
resulted a stationary combat, raging between the circum- 
ferences of the two concentric circles, with barbaric disso- 
nance of deadly feud, and infinite variety of oath and 
execration, till Sir Oran, charging desperately along one of 
the radii, fought a free passage through all opposition ; 
and rushing to the barouche of Sir Telegraph Paxarett, 
sprang to his old station on the box, from whence he 
shook his sapling at the foe with looks of mortal defiance. 
Mr. Forester, who had been forcibly parted from him at 
the commencement of the strife, and had been all anxiety 
on his account, mounted with great alacrity to his station 
on the roof ; the rest of the party was already seated ; the 
Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, half fainting with terror, 
earnestly entreated Sir Telegraph to fly ; Sir Telegraph 
cracked his whip, the horses sprang forward like racers, 

252 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

the wheels went round like the wheels of a firework. The 
tiunult of battle, lessening as they receded, came wafted to 
them on the wings of the wind ; for the flame of discord 
having been once kindled, was not extinguished by the 
departure of its first flambeau — Sir Oran ; but war raged 
wide and far, here in the thickest mass of central fight, 
there in the light skirmishing of flying detachments. The 
hustings were demolished, and the beams and planks turned 
into offensive weapons : the booths were torn to pieces, 
and the canvas converted into flags floating over the heads 
of magnanimous heroes that rushed to revenge they knew 
not what, in deadly battle with they knew not whom. 
The stalls and barrows were upset ; and the pears, apples, 
oranges, mutton pies, and masses of gingerbread, flew like 
missiles of fate in all directions. The sanctum sanctorum 
of the ale was broken into, and the guardians of the 
Hesperian liquor were put to ignominious rout. Hats 
and wigs were hurled into the air, never to return to the 
heads from which they had suffered violent divorce. The 
collision of sticks, the ringing of empty ale casks, the 
shrieks of women, and the vociferations of combatants, 
mingled in one deepening and indescribable tumult ; till at 
length, everything else being levelled with the heath, they 
turned the mingled torrent of their wrath on the cottage 
of Mr. Corporate, to which they triumphantly set fire, and 
danced round the blaze like a rabble of village boys round 
the effigy of the immortal Guy. In a few minutes the 
ancient and honourable borough of Onevote was reduced 
to ashes. 

From the phUosophical disquisitions of Melin- 
courty threatening towards the close of the book 
to swamp his fancy and dull his genius. Peacock 
turned for refreshment to poetic romance, and 

253 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

to that past age whose beauty had for him so 
irresistible a charm. The speech of Bacchus 
to the new arrivals in Calidore showed how the 
new and dismal influences at work among 
mankind rendered them unfit for the worship 
of the old Gods. The musical Unes at the open- 
ing of Canto III. of Rhododaphne are a lament 
for the state of man, deprived of tho inspiration 
and consolation arising from spiritual intercourse 
with the genii of nature. It is vain to call upon 
these godheads now : the world has lost them and 
their worship is but a half -understood tradition. 
He who cherishes their memory, and would fain 
make them the recipients of his prayers and the 
objects of his J03^ul hymns, must hold intercourse 
with them, as with the dead, through the medium 
of books and imaginative contemplation. By 
long years of enthusiastic study Peacock had 
made himself acquainted with the main and 
by-roads of Greek history, rehgion and art. 
Where the ordinary graduate learns some of the 
associations of a proper name, because without 
the resultant commentary a passage in Horace 
would be unintelligible. Peacock knew the place 
or person alluded to from independent reading 
of the mythologists, topographers, historians 
and other authors on his shelves. He knew 
ancient Hellas as a man knows the lanes and 

254 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

footpaths of his boyhood : his love for it was like 
the love of a district where every meadow and 
stream evokes a memory. This " cold scholar " 
had such a living knowledge and passionate love 
of antiquity that he seems separated from it 
not by untraversable centuries, but by mechanical 
obstacles. His familiarity with the classics was 
of a kind that few, even in his time, could 
appreciate ; and it may be imagined that the 
professors would have refused their consent to 
many of his conclusions and preferences. Smaller 
men have asserted with much satisfaction that 
he was not an exact scholar. Some of their 
proofs are highly unconvincing ; but, could the 
case be proved to the hilt, what a plea for 
inexactitude would they not establish ! 

If knowledge, taste, enthusiasm, and a musical 
ear could produce a fine poem, Bhododaphne 
would be a masterpiece. Though it is not that, 
it marks a great advance on his previous attempts 
at verse-writing on a large scale, and has the 
merit, unusual in all but the very highest 
narrative poetry, of being readable. Such a 
blessing is rather to be thankfully accepted than 
minutely explained. But without a tedious 
analysis two qualities, of subject and manner, 
are immediately recognisable as contributing 
to the superiority of this poem to its pre- 

255 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

decessors. It is a classical tale with classical 
illustration and imagery, not a modern theme 
pseudo-classically treated. Moreover, Peacock 
was writing under the happiest poetic influence 
to which he ever submitted, that of Coleridge. 
Had the Essay on Fashionable Literature been 
lost, this poem would prove that he had studied 
and admired Christabel and Khvbla Khan. The 
metrical innovation is used by Peacock much 
more sparingly than by its inventor ; but it is 
exceedingly grateful and effective in speeding, 
lightening and adding variety to the octo- 
syllabic verse. 

The first three cantos move easily through a 
series of incidents taking place on the same day, 
with a happy distribution of description and 
narrative. Anthemion's approach to the altar 
of Love, the withering of his garland of wild 
flowers, the sympathy of the strange maiden, 
who gives him a blossom of the rose-laurel ; 
his lonely wandering, discovery of the witchery, 
and the rite whereby he attempts to exorcise 
it ; his second meeting with her, and her second 
and more potent spell ; all these are described 
in a series of pictures, with the sacred and 
historic locality as background and full of the 
poetry of nature. Had the poem been left at 
this point it would have merited high praise as 

266 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

a fragment ; its last half, on the other hand, 
provides the best explanation of the abandon- 
ment of Ahrimanes, For, having worked out 
his original idea and shown the first weaving 
and confirmation of the charm. Peacock lacked 
invention to fill out the story with sufficiently 
interesting details. The narrative of Canto IV. 
begins with a line which it would be malicious 
to quote : nevertheless from this point, with the 
decline in narrative interest, comes a lowering 
of poetical tone. Good passages occur again 
before the end of the poem. Shelley was 
especially fond of the opening of Canto V. : 

Shed not thy tears, where love's last rest 

Is sweet beneath the cypress shade ; 

Where never voice of tyrant power. 

Nor trumpet-blast from rending skies. 

Nor winds that howl, not storms that lower. 

Can bid the sleeping sufferer rise. 

But mourn for them who live to keep 

Sad strife with Fortune's tempest rude ; 

For them who live to toil and weep 

In loveless, joyless solitude ; 

Whose days consume in hope, that flies 

Like clouds of gold that fading float. 

Still watched with fondlier-lingering eyes. 

As still more dim and more remote. . . . 

Man's happiest lot is not to be ; 

And when we tread life's thorny steep, 

Most blest are they who, earliest free. 

Descend to death's eternal sleep. 

257 B 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Two years later the sentiment of them was to 
receive ultimate expression in the stanzas of 
Adonais, The description, in the next Canto, 
of a lonely cottage with rank, neglected garden, 
is lit by one of the last flickers of the torch. 
Perhaps the greatest disappointment comes with 
the conclusion. Had the enchanted palace been 
the fabric of a dream, the awakening of Anthemion 
and his union with his betrothed would have 
made a natural and fitting ending to the tale. 
But the spells were real and his strange adven- 
tures actual. CaUiroe wakes from a charmed sleep 
and learns everything ; and a happy ending is 
speedily arranged between the adaptable youth 
and forgiving maiden, over the very real corpse 
of the enchantress. 

In IRhododaphne Peacock showed how far he 
had been capable of improving ; also, that 
success for him lay not this way. He had done 
his best, and made his last appeal for recognition 
by means of a volume of verse ; and afterwards 
apparently accepted the judgment of the public, 
indubitably right in this case, who preferred his 
prose. This brief interlude in his career as a 
novelist had no ill effect. On the contrary, the 
works following immediately after it show him 
in the most sparkling and happy mood to which 
he ever attained. 

258 



THE AUTHOR OF ** HEADLONG HALL" 

Headlong Hall and Melincourt had been mainly 
satirical : Nightmare Abbey and Maid Marian 
\ are made up primarily of comedy and romance. 
I Both pleasant and light-hearted tales, they are 
I in many respects Peacock's best book and his 
j worst. The first is in strict continuation of the 
lines laid down in Headlong Hall, and shows 
development and improvement in almost every 
particular. Its length is precisely the same ; 
but in spite of the initial boldness and compression 
of the earlier work, Nightmare Abbey is fuller 
and more satisfying. It is a perfect miniature. 
Within its small compass it is many-sided and 
complete. The interest is more evenly divided 
between the characters, and each is allowed 
adequate expression, and with a wonderful 
impartiality each one is made, while he is speak- 
ing, to appear the best in the book. With more 
right than Mr. Flosky, Mr. Escot might be called 
a spectator of shadows ; but he follows them up 
in order to discover and expose the bodies re- 
sponsible for them, and bid mankind have no faith 
in the delusive shade. Hilary, his more genial 
successor, has no impostors and perverts to 
expose : as the author's advocate, he mingles 
pleasantly and most unobtrusively in the com- 
pany, and only lodges an official protest against 
the tendency of some of the members to intro- 

259 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

duce an unnecessary and exotic misery into the 
lot of mankind, instead of trying to make the 
best of it. I 

In form this is certainly Peacock's most per- 
fect work. The romantic plot, worked out in 
the lonely tower, is skilfully brought into 
contact with the choice band of conversational 
experts who frequent the more cheerful parts 
of the house, and whose talk is its accompaniment 
and commentary. It is a Tale of Mystery, 
unfolded amidst a company of all the latter-day 
types of humanity, the credulous, the sceptical, 
the fashionable, the scheming, the common-sense, 
the frivolous and the monomaniacal doctrinaire, 
and receiving from each in turn indirect and 
provisional illumination. Wit, wisdom and 
folly come bubbling forth from the nine abundant 
springs of conversation in a rippling, dancing 
stream. The farcical confrontation of the un- 
suspecting rivals and relatives is effected by the 
most natural means, and causes an inevitable 
break-up of the house-party, bringing the story 
automatically to an end. To this technical 
perfection of outline is happily united a brilUance 
and vivacity of writing, the high-water-mark of 
Peacock's style in this second period. The art 
of formal conversation, each member of the party 
speaking strictly in character and giving summary 

260 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

and epigrammatic expression to his views, is 
seen at its highest point of development in 
Chapter XI. Mr. Cypress is on the eve of going 
abroad : this is perhaps his last dinner in England. 
On such an occasion there must of course be a 
brindisi, and the departing guest is thus addressed 
by the master of the house : 

Mr, Glowry, " You are leaving England, Mr. 
Cypress. There is a deHghtful melancholy in 
saying farewell to an old acquaintance, when 
the chances are twenty to one against ever 
meeting again. A smiling bumper to a sad 
parting, and let us all be unhappy together." 

Mr, Cypress (filling a bumper), " This is the 
only social habit that the disappointed spirit 
never unlearns." 

The Reverend Mr, Larynx [filling), "It is the 
only piece of academical learning that the 
finished educatee retains." 

Mr, Floshy {filling), "It is the only objective 
fact which the sceptic can realise." 

Scythrop (filling), "It is the only styptic for 
a bleeding heart." 

The Honourable Mr, Listless (filling), " It is 
the only trouble that is very well worth 
taking." 

Mr, Asterias (filling). "It is the only key of 
conversational truth." 

261 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Mr. Toohad (filling). " It is the only antidote 
to the great wrath of the devil." 

Mr. Hilary (filling). "It is the only symbol 
of perfect life. The inscription ' hic non 
BiBiTUR ' will suit nothing but a tombstone." 

The theme being thus stated, the talk moves 
more freely and in longer rhythms, first on the 
topic of the desirability of going abroad, and 
afterwards on the general subject of deteriora- 
tion and perfectibility ; until each one has 
adequately stated his position. Scythrop's 
revolutionary idealism, Mr. Toobad's uncom- 
promising pessimism, Mr. Flosky's fondness for 
metaphysical mystery, are already known to 
the reader and pervade the whole book. The 
guest of the evening therefore assumes an 
appropriately prominent part in the conversation, 
whose main feature is the opposition of the early 
Byronic attitude of Mr. Cypress and the " cheerful 
and solid wisdom " of Mr. Hilary. The latter 
maintains his case bravely against the half 
dozen who, for entirely different reasons, are all 
against him. At last he makes an especially 
bold protest against the " mystifying and blue- 
devilling of society," and by so doing rouses 
his opponents at once, bringing the conversation 
back at the same time to the opening key, a sign 
that it is drawing to a close : 

262 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

Mr. Hilary. " The highest wisdom and the 
highest genius have been invariably accompanied 
with cheerfuhiess. We have sufficient proofs 
on record that Shakespeare and Socrates were 
the most festive of companions. But now the 
little wisdom and genius we have seem to be 
entering into a conspiracy against cheerfulness." 

Mr. Toobad. " How can we be cheerful with 
the devil among us ? " 

Hon. Mr. Listless. " How can we be cheerful 
when our nerves are shattered ? " 

Mr. Flosky. " How can we be cheerful when 
we are surrounded by a reading public, that is 
growing too wise for its betters ? " 

Scythrop. " How can we be cheerful when 
our great general designs are crossed every 
moment by our little particular passions ? " 

Mr. Cypress. " How can we be cheerful in the 
midst of disappointment and despair ? " 

Mr. Glowry. " Let us all be unhappy together." 

Mr. Hilary. " Let us sing a catch." 

Mr. Gloiory. " No : a nice tragical ballad. 
The Norfolk Tragedy to the tune of the Hund- 
redth Psalm." 

Mr. Hilary. " I say a catch." 

Mr. Gloiory. " I say no. A song from Mr. 
Cypress." 

All. "A song from Mr. Cypress." 
263 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

The song that follows is, as has often been 
remarked, not a parody of Byron but a Byronic 
poem. Mr. Hilary again insists upon a catch. 
The clergyman comes to his help and together 
they sing the inimitable 

" Seamen Three." 

Seamen three ! What men be ye ? 

Gotham's three wise men we be. 

Whither in your bowl so free ? 

To rake the moon from out the sea. 

The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine. 

And our ballast is old wine ; 

And your ballast is old wine. 

Who art thou, so fast adrift ? 
I am he they call Old Care. 
Here on board we will thee lift. 
No : I may not enter there. 
Wherefore so ? 'Tis Jove's decree, 
In a bowl Care may not be ; 
In a bowl Care may not be. 

Fear ye not the waves that roU ? 

No : in charmed bowl we swim. 

What the charm that floats the bowl ? 

Water may not pass the brim. 

The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine, 

And our ballast is old wine ; 

And your ballast is old wine. 

At this point only does Peacock show his 

preference amongst the disputants. His artistic 

purpose forbade him to use Mr. Hilary to crush 

and ridicule their arguments. The victory here 

264 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

is even more decisive than one achieved by that 
method. It is the spiritual vitality of the 
cheerful wisdom which triumphs. " The whole 
party, in spite of themselves, caught the contagion 
and joined in chorus at the conclusion, each 
raising a bumper to his lips." 

The glory of this chapter is its pure fun, which 
is sufficient to captivate the reader, however 
unsuspicious he may be of the satirical intent. 
More farcical still on the intellectual plane is 
Marionetta's interview with Mr. Flosky. His 
mysterious absurdity is the metaphysical counter- 
part of the actual mystery of Scythrop's lonely 
tower. When the Welsh squires in Headlong 
Hall went to the library in the expectation of 
seeing a conjuror, they received instead instruc- 
tion, concealed in a baffling mist of words. Poor 
Marionetta really desires information, but she 
finds a verbal juggler who refuses to do anything 
but show off his tricks. He is far more amusing 
than Mr. Cranium. His long words are more 
telUng, his personahty more convincing : more- 
over his exhibition has the geniality of an im- 
promptu conversation as opposed to the stiffness 
of a lecture. He is interrupted in the com- 
position of a mournful ballad : 

" To what am I to attribute this very unex- 
pected pleasure, my dear Miss O'Carroll ? " 

265 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Marionetta. " I must apologise for intruding 
on you, Mr. Flosky ; but the interest which 
I — ^you — take in my cousin Scythrop " 

Mr. Flosky. " Pardon me. Miss O'CarroU ; 
I do not take any interest in any person or thing 
on the face of the earth ; which sentiment, if 
you analyse it, you will find to be the quint- 
essence of the most refined philanthropy." 

Marionetta, " I will take it for granted that 
it is so, Mr. Flosky ; I am not conversant with 
metaphysical subtelties, but " 

Mr. Flosky. " Subtleties ! my dear Miss 
O'CarroU. I am sorry to find you participating 
in the vulgar error of the reading public, to 
whom an unusual collocation of words, involving 
a juxtaposition of antiperistatical ideas, imme- 
diately suggests the notion of hyperoxysophistical 
paradoxology." 

Marionetta. " Indeed, Mr. Flosky, it suggests 
no such notion to me. I have sought you for the 
purpose of obtaining information." 

Mr. Flosky (shaking his head). " No one ever 
sought me for such a purpose before." 

Marionetta. " I think, Mr. Flosky — that is 
I beHeve — that is, I fancy — that is, I imagine — " 

Mr. Flosky. " The Tovreo-n the id est, the cie 
the c^est a dire, the that is, my dear Miss O'CarroU, 
is not applicable in this case — ^if you will permit 

266 



THE AUTHOR OF " HEADLONG HALL " 

me to take the liberty of saying so. Think is 
not synonymous with believe — for beUef , in many 
most important particulars, results from the 
total absence, the absolute negation of thought, 
and is thereby the sane and orthodox condition 
of mind ; and thought and belief are both essen- 
tially different from fancy, and fancy, again, is 
distinct from imagination. This distinction be- 
tween fancy and imagination is one of the most 
abstruse and important points of metaphysics. 
I have written seven hundred pages of promise 
to elucidate it, which promise I shall keep as 
faithfully as the bank will its promise to pay." 

Marionetta, " I assure you, Mr. Flosky, I care 
no more about metaphysics than I do about the 
bank ; and if you will condescend to talk to a 
simple girl in intelligible terms " 

Mr. Flosky, " Say not condescend ! Kjiow 
you not that you talk to the most humble of 
men, to one who has buckled on the armour of 
sanctity, and clothed himself with humility as 
with a garment ? " 

And so he continues, losing his equanimity 
but once, when Marionetta accuses him plainly 
and straightforwardly of talking nonsense. It 
is difficult to select from the conversations in this 
book, in which each speaker has a special claim 
to recognition. Asterias has many interesting 

267 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

remarks about mermaids. Listless is perhaps 
the most novel figure. It is owing in great part 
to his character and that of Marionetta that 
Nightmare Abbey must be ranked so distinctly 
higher than an3rthing that Peacock had yet 
achieved. 

During the last three years Peacock's mood 
has been growing steadily more and more cheerful. 
Speaking first as the saturnine Escot, he next 
identifies himself with the idealist Forester: 
with the advance of his temper to that of Hilary 
came the best work he was to produce for many 
years, where the touch is as light as the satire is 
caustic. Maid Marian was composed in a mood 
of excessive and unchastised merriment. Written 
during the last months of freedom and of Hfe in 
the country, it is an apotheosis of forest Hberty, 
the happy life among primaeval surroundings, 
governed not by arbitrary or oppressive laws 
but on the principles of natural justice. This 
exemption from all restriction, shown in the lives 
of Robin Hood and his followers, was accorded 
also by the author to himself. The plot is in- 
coherent and uninteresting, and can hardly have 
cost him a moment's thought. The incidents 
are mostly violent and farcical, and in many 
cases unredeemed by any particularly humorous 
quahty. Peacock relies extensively for the 

268 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

comic effect on a circumstance which is becoming 
with the lapse of time less and less funny — 
personal damage. When contemporaries found 
fourteen references to broken heads in six con- 
secutive chapters, there may have been a hearty 
laugh to greet each repetition of the joke. But 
now, owing to our increased sensitiveness and 
discrimination, as well as physical degeneracy, 
it leaves us cold. Something more than mere 
impact and contusion is required to force us to 
*' levy a contribution on our muscles." In one 
of the best books of anecdotes in the language 
it is related how a gentleman, having sent 
repeatedly to a doctor asking him to call, and 
the doctor having taken no notice of his messages, 
the would-be patient waited until the discourteous 
practitioner was passing under his window, and 
threw a certain bottle on his head. This is 
simple farce, and such laughter as it calls forth 
arises from the outrageous nature of the deed. 
The irresistible appeal is in the next sentence : 
" This humour pleased the Dr., and he went and 
saw the gent, and cured him." Similarly Peacock 
is successfully amusing not in his scenes of mere 
violence, but where he adds an element of con- 
scious exaggeration and parody of himself. 
Marvellous feats of archery, valiant eating and 
drinking, violent assault and battery, have 

269 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

figured largely in scenes which failed to amuse 
because they were intended to be credible. 
There is welcome rehef in a few passages where 
the reader is invited to share the author's fun 
at his own expense and his humorous contempt 
for the ingenious working out of a plot. For 
instance : three letters are written to warn his 
friends of Sir Guy of Gam well's captivity and 
condemnation ; and Little John, " having at- 
tached them to three blunt arrows, saddled the 
fleetest steed in old Sir Guy of Gamwell's stables, 
mounted, and rode first to Arlingford Castle, 
where he shot one of the three arrows over the 
battlements ; then to Rubygill Abbey, where he 
shot the second into the Abbey garden ; then 
past Gamwell Hall to the borders of Sherwood 
Forest, where he shot the third into the wood. 
Now the first of these arrows lighted in the nape 
of the neck of Lord Fitzwater, and lodged itself 
firmly between his skin and his collar ; the second 
rebounded with the hollow vibration of a drum- 
stick from the shaven sconce of the Abbot of 
Rubygill ; and the third pitched perpendicularly 
into the centre of a venison pasty in which 
Robin Hood was making incision." 

In style this is certainly the least successful 
and characteristic of all Peacock's tales ; more- 
over, it is surprisingly unoriginal. Not content 

270 



THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL" 

with borrowing the character of Frere Jean from 
Rabelais, he has made a slavish imitation of his 
diction, or rather, which is still worse, of that of 
Urquhart's translation. In some parts this 
comes out so strongly that a great deal of good 
will and patience is needed to read the chapters 
through. Such an unfortunate attempt at 
archaism is the more to be lamented as Peacock's 
own style is so far superior to the heterogeneous 
outcome of his ill-advised and ill-adapted bor- 
rowing. Yet in many parts of the book he is 
himself, not only in the scraps of ballad and 
lyrical verse, a great redeeming feature, but also 
in the dialogue and descriptions. The latter are 
indeed full of charm, owing, as almost always 
in Peacock's works, to the fact that here he is 
writing from personal experience. 

The Robin Hood Ballads were not the only 
or the most important inspiration of the book. 
They were the literary source, supplying materials 
for the plot and the traditional basis. But 
Peacock had been all his life attached to the 
woodlands ; he has specially recorded his fond- 
ness for Bisham Wood, the New Forest and 
Windsor Forest, which he of course knew in their 
unenclosed, wild condition. This intimacy with 
the wild woods might in itself have been sufficient 
to supply him with a setting for Maid Marian ; 

271 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

but he had actually witnessed a curious revival 
of the life of the free foresters which took place 
in the years 1814-15. This is related in The 
Last Day of Windsor Forest^ published in Dr. 
Garnett's tenth volume. The Act for the 
Enclosure of Windsor Forest contained one 
clause so faultily worded as in part to frustrate 
the intention of those responsible for drawing 
it up. It was that providing for the surrounding 
of some parts of the forest with pales and the 
disafforestation of the rest. After the Act had 
come into operation the clause was interpreted 
by legal experts to mean that no person could be 
punished for " hunting, coursing, killing, destroy- 
ing or taking " the deer in certain portions of 
the forest which, though unenclosed, were yet 
vested in the Crown. Profiting by this flaw in 
the Act, a farmer of Water Oakley began to 
make a regular business of killing the King's 
deer. He called himself Robin Hood, and gave 
the names of Scarlett and Little John to the two 
men whom he employed to help him in his lu- 
crative sport. The Deputy Ranger would forbid 
it and threaten the farmer with suits at law. 
Robin Hood held by the Act and set the Crown 
at defiance, and could not be crushed. Nor was 
he ever overcome on his own ground. The 
point was settled by employing two regiments of 

272 



THE AUTHOR OF ''HEADLONG HALL" 

cavalry to drive the deer from the open into the 
enclosed portions of the forest. Peacock had 
several times seen Robin and his men and wit- 
nessed their encounters with the representatives 
of the law. And though the disputants carried 
guns instead of bows, flourished Acts of Parlia- 
ment instead of halberds and axes, and were 
more likely to suffer from the consequences of 
ruffled temper than from broken skulls, their 
position was an anomalous survival of the 
twelfth century state of affairs. The subject 
was brought into a curiously close and direct 
opposition with his sovereign ; and the old cause 
of jealousy, the King's deer, the wildness of the 
place and the powerlessness of the authorities, 
must have recalled the legendary days of 
Sherwood very vividly to the frequenters of the 
actual Windsor Forest. 

This novel may then be partitioned, on the 
Manichean principle, into the legendary basis 
as represented in the ballads collected by Ritson, 
the body ; Urquhart, the spirit of evil ; and 
Peacock's own love of the forest and his glimpse 
at its old-time lawless life, the influence of good. 
And there is a sufficient amoimt of the latter to 
preserve it from perishing. It has little ex- 
traneous interest. The subject of legitimacy 
provides the satirical strain running through 

273 s 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

the story, wherein it is shown that every argument, 
except heredity and divine right, for obedience 
to a reigning king can be used as logically and 
effectively for adherence to an outlaw. This is 
well and spiritedly set forth by Friar Tuck, but 
in the ultimate effect of the book it is negligible. 
Alone perhaps of all the novels, Maid Marian 
will be read always for what it is on the surface 
— a tale of wild life. The spirit of the forest 
is its eternal element : 

For the slender beech and the sapling oak. 

That grow by the shadowy rill. 
You may cut down both at a single stroke. 

You may cut down which you will : 

But this you must know, that as long as they 
grow. 

Whatever change may be, 
You can never teach either oak or beech 

To be aught but a greenwood tree. 



274 



VIII 
THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

FOR the remainder of Peacock's life there 
are few facts to chronicle. Fourteen 
years after his first promotion he was 
made head of his department on the death of 
James Mill, his chief. He held this post for 
twenty years, which were almost the last of 
the Company's existence ; for John Stuart 
Mill, who succeeded him on his retirement, 
remained there only two, when the House was 
abohshed and its business taken over by the 
Government. 

Peacock's married life was apparently passed 
in perfect happiness for a decade or more. Short- 
ly after the end of that period his wife's con- 
stitutional melancholy, so pleasing to him as a 
young man, seems to have developed into 
something permanently calamitous. She died 
a few years before his retirement. There were 
four children of the marriage. The first, Mary 
Ellen, was born in 1821, and was consequently 
about eight years old when her father presented 

275 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

her with the Misfortunes of Elphin, Twenty- 
years later she became the first wife of George 
Meredith, six or seven years her junior. The 
short-lived Margaret Love was the next child. 
A boy and a girl followed, neither of whom 
long survived their father. 

During his tenure of office Peacock's literary- 
output was exceedingly miscellaneous, and as 
scanty. If every lyric and every article written 
in these thirty-eight years be reckoned separately, 
his productions will amount to little more than 
one a year. It is true that he may have con- 
tributed to periodicals articles which cannot 
now be claimed for him : this calculation applies 
to his avowed publications. 

A magazine article by Peacock was in itself 
an apparent inconsistency, if all his previous 
remarks on journalism be taken into account ; 
and his first critical essay has given rise to differ- 
ences of opinion among readers, who have under- 
stood it variously as a sincere expression of 
prejudices by a tory-ish hater of all things 
modern, or a vindictive paraddx, inspired by the 
neglect of Ehododaphne. Both interpretations 
seem to rest on a too literal reading of what was 
meant primarily to amuse, involving an over- 
serious attitude towards most of Peacock's 
writings. But let the logical and literal inter- 

276 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

preters read the Essay on Fashionable Literature^ 
and they must draw the inference that he could 
not have attached any importance to an article 
appearing in an ephemeral collection of mis- 
cellanies. The Four Ages of Poetry is in fact 
Peacock's gravest and most elaborate joke : it 
is at the same time an excellent stately piece of 
prose, containing many shrewd remarks and 
sound judgments. Allowing for his preference 
for antiquity and ironical estimate of life, there 
is nothing unreasonable in the review of poetry 
down to the last quarter of the eighteenth 
century. He then proceeds to disport himself 
in ridicule of the Lake school, and being by this 
time in high good humour, denies the possibility 
of any more good poetry being produced. The 
sincerity of his conclusion may be tested by the 
eulogy of the " mathematicians, astronomers, 
chemists, moralists, metaphysicians, historians, 
politicians and political economists, ^^ who from 
the pyramid of science which they have built up, 
look down in serene contempt upon the paltry 
antics of the poets on the modem Parnassus. 

An article on " The Poetry of Nonnus " in 
the London Magazine for October, 1822, is in- 
cluded in the Ust of Peacock's works. It would 
be interesting to know on what grounds it is 
attributed to him. The subject is, of course, 

277 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

one likely to be selected by an editor who wished 
for a contribution from him, and the writer's 
method in dealing with the received notions on 
the subject are mildly reminiscent of his polemical 
procedure. With this exception there is nothing 
characteristic of Peacock in the article, in manner 
or substance ; the style is quite undistinguished ; 
and the defence of Southey and Darwin, author 
of The Botanic Garden and the Loves of the Plants^ \ 
against the attacks of the critics, makes it diffi- 
cult to accept this, without proof, as his work* 
The same pseudonym is used by a writer in a 
subsequent number on the " Tragic Drama of 
the Greeks," and is also appended to a series of 
translations from the tragedians by which this 
is followed. On the other hand, an unsigned 
article in the same magazine for February, 1825, 
is, if not by Peacock, then by the only other man 
in England who could have written many por- 
tions of his works. It is on the subject of bubble 
companies, of which, says the writer, that month 
had been so prolific that it ought to be named, 
on the French Revolution model, Bubblose. 
He explains, in that delightfully non-technical 
language that Peacock always adopted in giving 
account of credit transactions, the steps whereby 
Jeremiah Hop-the-twig grows rich by forming 
an imaginary company. There is a good deal 

278 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

about the company's solicitors, the " respect- 
able " directors (who of course come out of the 
business with a considerable increase of " re- 
spectability "), Mr. Gudgeon, the investor, and 
other characters necessary to make up the 
comoediae personae. The article may almost be 
said to be signed by some passages toward the 
end, for instance : By the ruin of the small 
investors " capital is thrown into large masses, 
which is a great advantage (see the Edinhorough 
Review, No. 80)." 

Whether or no Peacock be the author of this 
article, it was in the following winter that he 
wrote the little volume of parodies and topical 
verses, issued privately twelve years later with 
the title of Paper Money Lyrics. Avowedly 
they celebrate the successive stages of the financial 
panic lasting from the beginning of November, 
when two large banks in the west and north 
stopped payment, and it was feared the London 
banks would do the same, till some time in March, 
when confidence was almost completely restored. 
Pan, therefore, the author of " panic terrors," 
opens the ball with the announcement : 

The country banks are breaking ; 
The London banks are shaking ; 

and the first lyric represents the depositors 
clamouring for their balances and being pacified 

279 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

by the banker's assurances that they have 
plenty of gold. But Peacock's objective is seldom 
single. Paper money is the main subject of his 
song ; but other pet aversions must also be 
touched up — financiers and economists, especially 
the Scotch, and his select band of poets. The 
reader is consequently not surprised to find that 
the third lyric is by R. S. Esq., Poet Laureate. 
This is a parody of the opening stanza of 
Thalaba, successful though not difficult. More 
amusing is the next, whose supposed authorship 
is sufficiently declared in the title : "A Mood 
of my own Mind : Occurring during a gale of 
wind at Midnight, when I was writing a paper on 
the Currency by the Hght of two mould candles." 
Wordsworth's extreme simphcity is well hit off, 
as when he says of paper currency : 
I find it buys me everything that people have 

to sell ; 
and there is an echo of Mainchance Villa in the 
reference to the drink. 

Which Mrs. W. brings to me, which she herself 
did brew : 
Oh ! doubly sweet is double X from JMistress 
double U. 

Moore's contribution is a ballad of Venus and 
Cupid, in his favourite metre, appropriately 
headed with a quotation from Anacreon, with 

280 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

an intended pun on the word Papyrus. Cole- 
ridge also writes a characteristic ballad on the 
story of the Three Men of Gotham, mystically- 
financially interpreted ; while Scott explains 
that the border warfare is still carried on by 
his countrymen, in the shape of dishonest busi- 
ness transactions. This subject, with special 
reference to Scotch notes, is pursued through 
several numbers, including one attributed to 
Campbell, " Ye kite-flyers of Scotland, Who 
live from home in ease," the final lament of the 
Caledonians being summed up in the phrase 
" Mac Banquo's occupation's gone ! " The ul- 
timate settlement, considered by Peacock to be 
unsound, is celebrated in the song of Margery 
Daw, describing the alterations and temporary 
adjustments of gold and paper currency. 

Paper Money Lyrics is thus a heterogeneous 
production. Its historical continuity is slight, 
and at the present day not sufficiently interesting 
to act as a strong unifying element. Peacock 
had many objects in view, and each of these in 
turn assumes the prominent place. One song 
is obviously on the currency question ; another 
is mainly personal satire ; another is literary 
parody. Sometimes the author is intent upon 
ridiculing the Scotch, at others he is expressing 
his unalterable distrust of the political economists. 

281 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

On the whole, he is at his best on his old themes 
of poetical and political satire. All that he has 
to say about " promises to pay " is a variation, 
in verse, of passages in Calidore and Melincourt ; 
his economists are mere vulgar swindlers, and 
his Scotchmen the traditional comic figures of 
the eighteenth century, coming to England to 
be introduced to boots and trousers and to acquire 
" walth and prosparity " by cheating its guileless 
inhabitants. While some verses go back to what 
he had written many years before — ^there is even 
a distinct recollection of Sir Proteus in the parody 
of Southey — others are directly prophetic of 
what was to come. The history of Mr. Touch- 
andgo, for instance, may well have been written 
at this time ; the expression a-Km ovap is here 
applied to Coleridge, and Scott is called " an 
enchanter unknown. " " Love and the FHmsies," 
one of the best parodies in the volume, is even 
more indicative of the direction about to be given 
to Peacock's literary activities. Thomas Moore 
had hitherto attracted little of his attention, and 
had not been noticed in any of his better known 
works. Before the publication of Crotchet Castle 
this unfortunately superficial writer was to receive 
at his hands a chastisement which, if criticism 
had the power it is sometimes supposed to possess, 
must have completely annihilated him. 

282 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

The first instalment was delivered in a review 
of his Epicurean, published in the October num- 
ber of the Westminster Review, 1827. This had 
been founded a few years before by Bentham, 
the younger Mill and others of the same group. 
Peacock was assuredly not drawn into this circle 
by respect for their economic science ; but 
through the Mills he was personally acquainted 
with many of them, and much of their philo- 
sophical radicalism — its free thought and prin- 
ciples of fearless and unbiassed enquiry, and 
especially perhaps its distrust of the Whigs and 
hostility to the Edinburgh — represented more 
nearly his own views than any other current 
political creed. He had long before discovered 
for himself, what was one of the chief points of 
the Westminster propaganda, that Whigs and 
Tories were, so far as social ameHoration was 
concerned, equally inert and useless. This 
point of view, coupled with the fact that he was 
notoriously an exposer of abuses and implicitly 
a reformer, must, if the injustice of attaching to 
him a party label is to be tolerated at all, class 
him, with all his peculiarities, as a Radical, 
Distinctly Radical is the tone of his contribu- 
tions to the Westminster whenever he has occasion 
to touch on questions of general policy. 

Moore's Epicurean, however, afforded little 
283 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

opportunity for the expression of political views. 
What it did provide was the best imaginable 
material for destructive criticism, and Peacock 
on his side provided consummate workmanship, 
producing a review which is a masterpiece in 
its kind. Sentimentality and unsoundness can 
seldom have appeared so obvious and all-pervad- 
ing, in a work of equal ambition, by an author 
enjoying so great a reputation. Whatever may 
be thought of Peacock's attacks on Southey and 
Wordsworth, his Four Ages of Poetry, and other 
passages which have proved so offensive to the 
lay clergy of the reading public, his handling of 
Moore must be admitted to be not only blameless 
but actively virtuous. In this article he unmasks 
a prosperous impostor, whose " oriental " poems 
had given an earnest of what he might do 
when he trespassed on the domain of learn- 
ing. The translator of Anacreon might have 
been expected to take the trouble to find 
out, even if he did not already know, the outlines 
of the philosophy and social conditions of the 
people whom he claims to describe in his tale. 
Or if to go to original sources would have taxed 
his energy and patience too severely, he could, 
as Peacock points out, have been preserved from 
the grossest blunders by a moderately careful 
reading of an easily accessible author — Lucretius. 

284 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

Yet it is shown conclusively that in The Epi- 
curean Moore has entirely misrepresented all 
the most prominent characteristics of the sect 
whose name he has used, and drawn a picture 
of them according to the vulgar signification of 
the word, as mere sybarites and seekers after 
immediate pleasure. To begin with his hero is 
a charming youth, elected on account of his 
personal beauty and social popularity to be head 
of the sect. This strange creation is persuaded 
by a dream, for which as an Epicurean he had a 
materialistic interpretation, to go in search of 
the secret of eternal life, of which his philosophy 
denied both the existence and the desirability. 
But it is unnecessary to follow Peacock and his 
victim through the various stages from the view to 
the death. Instances are adduced of almost every 
possible misconception and solecism, geographical 
and archaeological, and especially philosophical, 
until Moore is absolutely gnawed to pieces. Pea- 
cock is engaged in a more important task than 
discrediting the author of The Epicurean. He is 
defending a grave and by no means ignoble phil- 
osophy, for which he had a particular fondness, 
from vulgar misrepresentation. The book nause- 
ates him, and, like Aelian's sick lion, who, for me- 
dicinal purposes, must devour an ape, he is not 
comfortable until he has demolished its author. 

285 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

In 1829 was published The Misfortunes of 
Elphin, which had probably occupied his spare 
hours and half hours for several years. This 
conjecture is founded on the only definitely 
personal satire in the T^ook, contained in the 
second chapter. '* Virtual superintendence " 
and the rotten embankment are of course " vir- 
tual representation " and the unreformed House 
of Commons. The arguments of Prince Seithenyn 
for leaving the construction as it is, and for 
objecting to those innovators who urge the 
necessity for repairing it, are not only a fair 
summary of a regular portion of the anti-Keform 
contentions of the day, but they bear a sufficient 
resemblance to the speeches of Canning in Parlia- 
ment in 1817, to his electors in 1820 and again 
in the House in 1822, to justify the conclusion 
that in the eloquence of the Lord High Com- 
missioner Peacock intended to parody the 
famous utterances of the Tory statesmen. It is 
therefore highly probable that this part of the 
book was finished at some time between the 
latter date and 1827, when Canning died. Some 
of this reasoning had been already exposed in 
Melincourt, but in Elphin it is introduced with 
greater subtlety, though in an equally farcical 
scene. As in Maid Marian outlawry was defend- 
ed by all the pleas usually urged in support of 

286 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

the claims of legitimacy, so here arguments are 
used in favour of what is obviously wrong, which 
were currently put forward in defence of a cause, 
considered by a lessening majority to be that of 
patriotism and general welfare. That the em- 
bankment, says the prince, " is somewhat rotten 
in parts, I will not altogether deny ; that it is 
any the worse for that, I do most sturdily gainsay. 
. . . Our ancestors were wiser than we : they 
built it in their wisdom ; and if we should be so 
rash as to try to mend it, we should only mar it. 
. . . There is nothing so dangerous as innovation. 
. . . This immortal work has stood for centuries, 
and will stand for centuries more, if we let it 
alone." Teithrin then makes the remark, ex- 
cellent in allegorical as in literal significance, 
that conditions are no longer the same as they 
were : " The level of the sea is materially 
altered." To this there is no answer but to 
deny the fact and scout the idea : " Who ever 
heard of such a thing ! " 

Yet Prince Seithenyn is a very different person 
from Mr. Any side Antijack. Criminal negligence 
and infinite self-satisfaction must indeed be laid 
to his charge ; but he is free from the baser 
attributes of his precursor — the canting sophistry, 
the cynical opportunism, the abusive vulgarity, 
the venality and deliberate preference of his 

287 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

own to the national interest. Intemperance and 
sloth are, in comparison with these, but mild 
accusations to bring against any man. The blame 
attaches as much to society for putting a person 
of his character in a responsible position, as to 
Seithenyn for behaving as he did. It would 
be as reasonable to quarrel with his drink-sodden 
head for not enclosing a superior brain as to be 
angry with a port bottle for not containing refined 
barley-water. Intellectually he is pitiable, and 
he is treated by the author with extreme gentle- 
ness, not even being allowed to perish in the cata- 
clysm which destroyed the land with sixteen 
prosperous towns, and drowned most of the 
inhabitants in their sleep, though he was per- 
sonally responsible for its occurrence. Having 
created this character to speak the opinions of 
Canning, Peacock soon forgot the satirical pur- 
pose, and delivered him from a well-deserved 
death to fill the role of a glorious and single- 
minded drunkard. 

His preservation and the importance of the 
part subsequently played by him gives to the plot 
what unity it can be said to possess ; for Elphin, 
though technically the hero, is in fact a principal 
actor in no portion of the book. He is not even 
a prime mover in remonstrating with Seithenyn, 
for he was ignorant of what was happening until 

288 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

informed by a subordinate. Afterwards his 
contribution to the action consists in finding the 
babe in the coracle, and in being carried off and 
imprisoned by Maelgon Gwyneth. With Seith- 
enyn it is far otherwise. At first he is the very 
tool of Destiny, the proximate cause of all joys 
and misfortunes to come. At his reappearance 
he betrays the vital secret, whose knowledge 
will lead indirectly to the liberation of Elphin. 
He and his wine from gold bring about the 
peaceable restoration of Gweny var ; he it is, 
finally, who bears evidence to the young bard's 
important share in the transaction, and thus 
conduces to a happy ending. By linking the 
story of Taliesin with the Arthurian romances 
Peacock has introduced an element which, it 
must be admitted, makes for diversity rather 
than singleness of purpose. Yet the joining is 
skilfully and naturally made, and it is impossible 
to regret this mingUng of legends, since it gives 
an additional interest to the story as a strikingly 
original presentment of the life in our island at 
the close of the period of antiquity, and affords 
the author an opportunity for that kind of des- 
criptive writing, interspersed with ironical com- 
parison and interpretation, in which he excels. 
Far greater than the artfully brought about 
cohesion between the various strands of the 

289 T 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

story is the unity of spirit pervading the whole 
and making it, in spite of the remoteness of the 
theme and the shadowy nature of many of the 
characters, Peacock's most charming romance 
and perhaps the completest statement of his 
point of view. 

The mountain scenery of Wales had always 
been his happiest source of inspiration : now of 
a sudden it becomes apparent that he was only 
less passionately attached to the antiquities of 
the country. It is, however, difficult to arrive 
at an estimate of the extent of his studies in this 
direction. It is not easy to imagine Peacock 
taking up any subject in a superficial manner ; 
his reading was most likely wide and curious ; 
but at every step we are baffled in the attempt 
to ascertain particulars of it. The only book 
mentioned in his letters that may have given him 
an interest in the subject is Evans' Cambrian 
Itinerary, This he had with him at Maentwrog 
in 1810. For general information we know that 
he read Ross of Warwick and Giraldus Cambren- 
sis. From some semi-contemptuous remarks in 
the course of the story it seems probable that 
he had made some use of The Mythology and Rites 
of the British Druids, by Edward Davies. In 
this work the inundation of the plain of Gwaelod 
and the early history of Taliesin are both dis- 

290 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

cussed at length, from the point of view of com- 
parative mythology. There is some evidence 
to suggest that he also got a good many facts 
and ideas from The Heroic Elegies of Llywarch 
Hen, by William Owen. Here he could have 
found the motto of Bardism, " the truth against 
the world," constantly mentioned in his writings, 
and man}^ of his favourite poetic triads. His 
account of the different orders of druids seems to 
be abridged from that given in this book, which 
also contains the poems Gorwynimi, imitated in 
The Brilliances of Winter, and Ynglynion, followed 
at some distance in The Song of the Four Winds. 
There remains the interesting inquiry, to which 
it is unfortunately not possible to give a definite 
answer : How far was Peacock acquainted with 
ancient Welsh literature at first hand ? 

Considering the length of time he spent in 
Wales between 1810 and 1813, his mental energy 
and love of study, and his facihty in learning 
languages, it is difiicult to suppose that he took 
no interest in the local speech. Yet from the 
evidence of his early writings, including letters, 
poems, and Headlong Hall, it can only be stated 
with certainty that he knew one or two of tlie 
bardic triads in English, that he had mastered 
the correct pronunciation and accentuation of 
the proper names and knew the meaning of 

291 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

many of them, together with the potent word 
cwrw. This is in all probability a considerable 
under-statement of his actual knowledge ; but 
from the absence of any indications of his being 
preoccupied with Welsh subjects for many years 
after the publication of his first book, it is reason- 
able to presume that at this early period his 
acquaintance with the language and literature 
was neither wide nor deep. Passing on to the 
Misfortunes of Elphin, we find him not only 
building up a story out of two somewhat obscure 
legends, but filling his book with translations and 
paraphrases of ancient poems and with proverbs 
quoted in the original tongue. The latter fact 
seems particularly indicative. It is highly un- 
characteristic of Peacock's soundness and 
scholarly honesty, and his hatred of the display 
of superficial knowledge, to quote words from a 
language which he did not thoroughly under- 
stand. The inference to be drawn is obvious : 
with his marriage came a revival of interest in 
Wales and Welsh things, and, very likely with 
his wife's help, he no doubt studied for some 
time with his habitual assiduity, until he could 
read currently enough the poems and prose 
required for his purpose. 

However slight or however intimate was his 
knowledge of the ancient authorities, Peacock's 

292 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

total indebtedness to them is comparatively 
small, either for the details of the plot or for the 
ultimate pleasure derivable from reading the 
book. It is true that the poems are a great 
feature of this tale ; but the best two, the War 
Song of Dinas Vawr, and the Circling of the 
Mead-Horns, are original ; and the third in 
order of merit, the Song of Gwyddno is (if one 
may judge by the literal version) vastly improved 
by its adaptor. As for the story, the mere out- 
line which he has taken over could not have 
been made to fill ten pages. By his imagination 
and his pictorial and satiric gift he has added to 
it, altered it and inwoven it with other elements, 
overlaid it with description and comment and 
given new motive-forces to its action, so that it 
belongs as much to him as to Wales. Starting 
with the mere legendary outline that, owing to 
the negligence of Seithenyn the Drunkard the 
sea was let in upon the plain of Gwaelod, Peacock 
makes of this four masterly chapters. He 
describes the situation and condition of the 
country, referring to the tradition of inundations 
in past ages, and the secular fear of the oppres- 
sion of Gwenhidwy, accompanying his statements 
with a crisp and trenchant running commentary, 
his general estimate of commercial prosperity, 
kingship, and the moraUty of high Government 

293 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

officials. The drunkenness of Seithenyn, his 
conduct in the presence of Elphin and his argu- 
ments on the subject of the embankment entrust- 
ed to his care, are presented in such a manner 
as to impress this character indelibly on the 
memory and confer on him for the first time 
that immortality claimed for him in the triad. 
The account of the storm, the gracious figure of 
Angharad amid the noise and confusion of the 
banqueting-hall, the song of the bard, the ir- 
ruption of the spring tide and the escape of 
Elphin, Angharad and their companions along 
the summit of the embankment with the sea 
raging on each side, give to the following pages 
a high rank as vivid and picturesque description. 
In coming to the story of Taliesin Peacock 
does not scruple to take liberties with his original, 
not merely in the matter of arrangement but in 
altering and adding to the incidents. The 
finding of the child in the salmon weir is simply 
narrated according to one of the traditional 
accounts, the greatest change being that the 
exclamation " Behold a radiant brow ! " is at- 
tributed to Angharad instead of to one of the 
guardians of the weir. This was no doubt done 
with the intention of concentrating the interest 
upon his chief characters. All the mummery of 
the magic cauldron and the reincarnation of 

294 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

Gwion Bach is omitted here, and only given in 
a song towards the end of the book, with some 
caustic remarks as to its meaning and value. 

The education of Taliesin is a succinct account 
of the main differences between life in a com- 
paratively primitive period and in the early 
nineteenth century. In this chapter Peacock is 
seen, as it were, in direct contact with his subject. 
He gives us at the same time the fruits of his 
study of antiquity and of his experience of Kfe, 
pointing out the permanent motives of human 
nature, unaffected save in the forms of their 
activity by the alteration in circumstances 
brought about by material progress. The satire 
here is general, but in more than one place adum- 
brates what is to follow shortly in Crotchet Castle, 
The Welsh of the sixth century had no poUtical 
economy, no paper money, no factories " wherein 
the squaHd many, from infancy to age, might be 
turned into component portions of machinery 
for the benefit of the purple-faced few." We 
are their superiors in moral science but their 
equals in morals, that is to say, in the possession 
of a few maxims, remembered in drink and for- 
gotten in business. Patriotism was much the 
same then as now ; '' the powerful took all they 
could get from their subjects and neighbours; 
and called something or other sacred and 

295 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

glorious when they wanted the people to 
fight for them." The inviolability of the bards 
corresponded to our freedom of the Press ; 
their unwavering adhesion to their motto of the 
Truth against the World, to the incorruptibility 
of our journalists. Their mistaken astronomy 
had as much effect in elevating the mind to 
noble contemplation as our accurate science : 
their medicine was as profitable to the public, 
though not to its practitioners, as ours. Justice 
was summarily administered by the King, and 
there was consequently no necessity for " the 
sweet-faced myriads of our Learned Friends." 

As the people did not read the Bible, and had no 
religious tracts, their religion, it may be assumed, was not 
very pure. . . . They were observant of all matters of 
outward form, and tradition even places among them 
personages who were worthy to have founded a society for 
the suppression of vice. It is recorded in the triads that 
" Gwrgi Garwlwyd killed a male and female of the Cyroiy 
daily and devoured them ; and on the Saturday he killed 
two of each, that he might not kill on Sunday." This can 
only be a type of some sanctimonious hero who made a 
cloak of piety for oppressing the poor 

When any of the Romans or Saxons, who invaded the 
island, fell into the hands of the Britons before the intro- 
duction of Christianity, they were handed over to the 
druids, who sacrificed them, with pious ceremonies, to their 
goddess Andraste. These human sacrifices have done 
much injury to the druidical character amongst us, who 
never practise them in the same way. They lacked, it 

296 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

must be confessed, some of our light, and also some of our 
prisons. They lacked some of our light, to enable them 
to perceive that the act of coming, in great multitudes, 
with fire and sword, to the remote dwellings of peaceable 
men, with the premeditated design of cutting their throats, 
ravishing their wives and daughters, killing their children, 
and appropriating their worldly goods, belongs, not to the 
department of murder and robbery, but that of legitimate 
war, of which all the practitioners are gentlemen, and 
entitled to be treated like gentlemen. They lacked some 
of our prisons, in which our philanthropy has provided 
accommodation for so large a portion of our own people, 
wherein, if they had left their prisoners alive, they could 
have kept them from returning to their countiymen and 
being at their old tricks again immediately. They would 
also, perhaps, have found some difficulty in feeding them, 
from the lack of the county rates, by which the most 
sensible and amiable part of our nation, the country 
squires, contrive to coop up, and feed at the public charge, 
all who meddle with the wild animals of which they have 
given themselves the monopoly. But as the Druids could 
neither lock up their captives nor trust them at large, the 
darkness of their intellect could suggest no alternative to 
the process they adopted, of putting them out of the way, 
which they did with all the sanctions of religion and law. 
If one of these old Druids could have slept, like the seven 
sleepers of Ephesus, and aAvakened in the nineteenth 
century some fine morning near Newgate, the exliibition of 
some half-dozen funipendulous forgers might have shocked 
the tender bowels of his humanity, as much as one of his 
wicker baskets of captives in the flames shocked those of 
Caesar; and it would, perhaps, have been difficult to 
convince him that paper credit was not an idol, and one of 
a more sanguinaiy character than his Andraste. The 
Druids had their view of these matters, and we have ours ; 

297 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

and it does not comport with the steam engine speed of 
our march of mind to look at more than one side of a 
question. 

The people lived in darkness and vassalage. They were 
lost in the grossness of beef and ale. They had no 
pamphleteering societies to demonstrate that reading and 
writing are better than meat and drink ; and they were 
utterly destitute of the blessings of those " schools for all,'" 
the house of correction, and the treadmill, wherein the 
autochthonal justice of our agrestic kakistocracy now 
castigates the heinous sins which were then committed 
with impunity, of treading on old footpaths, picking up 
dead wood, and moving on the face of the earth within the 
sound of the whirr of a partridge. 

Having laid down this sound basis of inter- 
pretation, Peacock proceeds with the history of 
Taliesin. Besides his own inestimable comment 
and imaginative description, he brings to the 
story as told in the Hanes Taliesin as much or 
more than he takes from it. The characters 
of Seithenyn rescued from drowning, the Abbot 
of Glastonbury, and Arthur are his contribution. 
The trick played upon Rhun and its exposure by 
Elphin are altered and improved in detail from 
the original account; the love of Melanghel is 
put in as an additional motive for Taliesin's 
energy. More honour is certainly done to Talie- 
sin in making him overcome the bards at Mael- 
gon's court by his skill in music than by attri- 
buting his victory, with the Hanes, to magic. 

298 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

Finally the unimaginative and uninteresting 
incidents of the horse-race and the pot of gold 
of the original are replaced by the third part of 
Peacock's narrative, naturally brought about 
by Rhun's second adventure, vSeithenyn's in- 
continence and Taliesin's astuteness in seeing 
how his knowledge of the queen's whereabouts 
may be made use of to enlist Arthur's powerful 
interest on the side of Elphin. 

Peacock is now at the summit of his achieve- 
ment. In this more than in any other of his 
works he appears absolutely at his ease, a master 
of his subject and of English prose ; a felicitous 
and graceful lyrical poet, a keen and caustic 
satirist of humanity at large, but especially of 
the great and powerful, a shrewd and original 
interpreter of history and legend, the possessor 
of a true gift of vivid pictorial and historical 
imagination. Other books may be more obviously 
witty, may appear outwardly more characteristic 
or more brilliant, but in this his genius seems 
surer, his touch more masterly, the general 
satire truer and more telling, the criticism deeper: 
romance here coexists with disillusionment, 
enthusiasm with discriminating clarity of vision. 
It is the book that has most enjoyment to offer 
to the general reader by the interest of the story, 
to the lover of Peacock by the intensely personal 

299 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

tone of the whole, to the amateur of style by 
the vigour, beauty and felicity of the language. 

In the year intervening between the publica- 
tion of this and of Peacock's next novel appeared 
three articles written by him in the Westminster 
Review y on the memoirs of Jefferson, on Moore's 
" Life and Letters of Byron," and one entitled 
' ' The Chronicles of London Bridge. ' ' From these 
it may be clearly seen that twelve years of official 
life have not taken off any of his keenness, or 
caused him to acquiesce, any more than in the 
days of Melincourt, in the ways of the world. 
Still less have they conduced to the Toryism 
which has been preposterously attributed to him 
at this period. He is still a Radical and 
republican at heart, a sagacious detector of 
" jobs " and abuses, and a penetrating critic 
with an honest hatred of the meanness and self- 
seeking of literary people. These writings are 
thus interesting in themselves and useful for 
contradicting any false notions that may be 
derived from Crotchet Castle. That Peacock's 
political ideals were on the most vital issues 
those of the Westminster may be proved by one 
sentence. "It is time alone," he writes, " that 
shows whether the young popularity-carping 
senator is a true patriot, or a Whig, acting 
patriotism ; whether the young soldier of a 

300 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

republic is at heart a Napoleon or a Washington." 
The article on London Bridge was written on 
the occasion of its proposed rebuilding. Peacock's 
contention is that the old bridge could be 
successfully altered to serve all purposes requisite 
and attainable, that the new bridge is unnecessary 
and, in short, a job on the part of those who 
will make a profit out of the construction. He 
remarks, in his old vein, that the actual bridge 
" was built on such unscientific principles, that 
it ought to have been carried away before it was 
finished, when it was finished, and at any given 
time subsequently ; but partly by the awkward 
contrivances of barbarous men, partly by its 
own obstinacy, it has stood six centuries and a 
quarter, amidst the perpetual prophecies of 
disinterested engineers that it could not stand 
any longer." 

But the historic publication of this year was 
his review of Moore's Life and Letters of Byron. 
If his previous criticism had thoroughly under- 
mined Moore's reputation as a writer, this one 
completely took away his character as a man. 
One result of this was that Moore retaliated, 
thereby proving the justness of the article, by 
spreading a report that Bowring, the editor of 
the Westminster, had invited him to his house 
with the intention of shooting him. Thus, out 

301 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

of the four occasions on which Peacock had 
taken notice of Moore, the first celebrated his 
famous duel with Jeffrey, and the last seemed 
likely to provoke a similar affair. This review 
is not technically so powerful as that of The 
Epicurean, Yet it is truly remarkable in proving 
that Peacock understood Byron, whom he had 
never met, a great deal better than many who 
had come into frequent personal contact with 
him, and how this understanding enabled him 
to penetrate the motives and methods of those 
acquaintances of the poet who had written of 
him. He saw quite clearly that Byron adapted 
his conversation to his listener, and that he was 
in the habit of deliberately feeding vulgar 
credulity and curiosity with apparently earnest 
utterances, which only the possessor of a superior 
intelligence or a greater share in the speaker's 
intimacy could appreciate at their true value. 
This practice, saj^s Peacock, though not in itself 
praiseworthy, may be justified, if ever, in the 
case of a man in Byron's situation, " living out 
of society and much talked of in it, and haunted 
in his retirement by varieties of the small Boswell 
or eavesdropping genus." Leigh Hunt and 
Medwin are rightl}^ consigned to this class, and 
the value of their reported conversations with 
Byron discounted accordingly. He then shows 

302 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

how Moore fell more than once into the trap, 
misunderstood some of Byron's remarks, and 
even completely mistook the meaning of his 
verses. Stupidity however is not his gravest 
charge. He proves that on one important 
subject, that of Byron's so-called religious in- 
fidelit}^ Moore had been sympathetic when in 
the poet's company, though for the sake of his 
own reputation he loudly deplores the fact in 
public. This, says Peacock, is " quite of a piece 
with Mr. Moore's system of acquiescence with 
the influential in all its forms." After a detailed 
criticism of the work, neither purely literary 
nor wholly personal, but intellectually funda- 
mental, comes the verdict : the volume consists 
of "a series of shallow sophisms and false 
assumptions, wrapped up in bundles of meta- 
phors, put forth with a specious semblance of 
reason and liberality, and directed to the single 
end of upholding all the abuses and delusions 
by which the aristocracy profit." In reading 
this article the impression of absolute soundness 
and mastery is not so strong as in that on The 
Epicurean, Peacock has not at any rate taken 
so much trouble to parade his proofs, nor has he 
been at great pains to disguise his prejudice. 
Yet it is difficult to feel much sympathy with 
the man who had destroyed Byron's autobio- 

303 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

graphy, or even to refrain from rejoicing every 
time he receives a thrust. 

If Paper Money Lyrics prepared us for Mr, 
Touchandgo of Crotchet Castle, the criticisms in 
the Westminster have sufficiently introduced 
Mr. Eavesdrop. This personage is usually taken 
to represent Hazlitt, whose Spirit of the Age 
might have entitled him to the name. The 
point is unimportant. It is impossible to identify 
the character from internal evidence, and it is 
therefore useless to be dogmatic. We happen to 
know that Peacock objected to the " small 
Boswells," who had betrayed what they imagined 
to be Byron's confessions to them ; yet the 
general exception which had been taken to The 
Spirit of the Age as breach of confidence on a 
large scale would no doubt lead his readers to 
think that its author was shadowed in Eavesdrop. 
In any case the treatment of the character is 
slight and generalised, and he is probably intended 
to be no more than a type of this fresh class of 
unpleasant productions of the nineteenth century. 

Public characters in Crotchet Castle are less 
numerous than in the first three novels. The 
most notorious is of course Lord Brougham, or 
the Learned Friend, a title happily indicating 
both his legal profession and his enthusiasm for 
education. His appearance in this book is 

304 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

sudden and unprepared, save for one or two re- 
marks about pamphleteering societies in The 
Misfortunes of Elphin. It would appear that 
Peacock had refrained from saying anything 
against this self-advertising politician so long as 
the memory of his early championship of the 
cause of liberty remained green, and there was 
yet any hope that his influence might be exerted 
on the side of the Radical party. Up to the end 
of Peacock's second period such a hope had not 
seemed unreasonable ; but exactly at that time 
began the series of actions and speeches which 
led to the final and bitter disappointment. We 
now know that in the year 1819 Brougham had 
written to Lord Grey expressing his dislike of 
the Radicals and urging that the Whigs should 
publicly announce their hostility to them. 
Though Peacock was in all probability ignorant 
of this fact, the change of tone must have become 
apparent at the same time. Consequently in 
Crotchet Castle — the first contemporary study 
for twelve years — Brougham steps at once into 
the full glare. He has in the interval quite 
displaced those who had previously attracted 
to themselves Peacock's bitterest criticism, and 
henceforth holds undisputed pre-eminence among 
the b^es noires of the satirist. Eavesdrop is 
indeed spoken of with rage, but the Learned 

305 u 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Friend with loathing and contempt. It is to 
be noted that all the incidents of his career sin- 
gled out for ridicule in Crotchet Castle are those 
of the past twelve years. The late Mr. Brougham, 
as Peacock would have expressed it, is left 
entirely out of account. These incidents are, 
briefly, his appointment of commissioners to 
inquire into charity abuses ; his part in the 
foundation of the Society for the Diffusion of 
Useful Knowledge, and his authorship of its 
introductory volume ; his defection from the 
Whigs to join forces with Canning and his return 
to Opposition when the latter was succeeded by 
the Duke of WelHngton ; and finally his elevation 
to the peerage as Baron Brougham and Vaux, 
or, as Peacock suggests, his public assumption 
of the title of grand Guy Fawkes : " Thank 
Heaven for that ! He is disarmed from further j 
mischief." | 

Mr. Macquedy was immediately recognised^ 
lay contemporaries as McCulloch, the poUtical 
economist. The explanation of his name — 
" the son of a demonstration " — would tempt us 
to identify him with John Stuart, the son of 
James Mill. But independently of the con- 
sideration that contemporaries were probably 
right, Macquedy's avowed connection with the 
Edinburgh was applicable to McCulloch and not 

306 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

to MiU, who did not write for that review until 
some years later than the date of Crotchet Castle. 
As readers of Sir Edward Strachey's reminis- 
cences may see, the incident of the paper 
beginning " In the infancy of society " is a 
recollection of a dinner at which Peacock had 
been bored to death by three political economists, 
of whom McCulloch was one, though he was not, 
as in the novel, the prime offender. The gentle 
ridicule and often respectful handling of Mac- 
quedy is a sign of Peacock's growing impartiality 
in many directions. It arises in this case from 
a realisation and acknowledgment that his dis- 
like of the science and nationality personified in 
this individual was whimsical and unreasonable. 
From this there results an entire lack of bitter- 
ness, a discriminating satire, a humorous and 
personal treatment of the character which is 
no small addition to the value of the book as a 
literary work. 

Mr. Toogood is sketched in far too vaguely 
to be claimed as either a portrait or a caricature 
of Owen, but an Owenite he luidoubtedly is, 
introduced to represent the theory of co- 
operation, deeply studied and hotly controverted 
by the political economists. A similar motive 
accounts for the appearance of Mr. Skionar, 
or Coleridge, who now acts his last part in the 

307 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Peacockian comedies. Coleridge, as has already 
been noticed, has gradually gone up in the author's 
estimation, ever since his first farcical descrip- 
tion as Mr. Mystic. His transcendental philo- 
sophy is still represented as unintelligible and 
therefore repugnant. But Peacock's sympathies 
had been enlisted for him by his unjust treatment 
at the hands of the reviewers. Twice already, 
in Nightmare Abbey and in the review of Moore's 
Byron, he has publicly taken Coleridge's part, 
and by this time seems to be genuinely sorry 
for him. The most notable passage about him 
in Crotchet Castle is a distinct vindication : 
" Why, they say that Mr. Skionar, though he is 
a great dreamer, always dreams with his eyes 
open, with one eye at any rate, which is an eye 
to his gain ; hut I believe that in this respect 
the poor man has got an ill name by keeping bad 
company. He has two dear friends, Mr. Wilful 
Wontsee and Mr. Rumblesack Shantsee," etc. 
This is surely as far as a writer could be expected 
to go, who was an inveterate enemy of the Lake 
poets, German metaphysics, Toryism, and 
especially of ex-Radicals. 

The above remarks on Coleridge are made by 
Lady Clarinda, so far the best drawn of Pea- 
cock's women. Indeed the only one among her 
predecessors who can be said to possess a char 

308 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

acter is the light-headed coquette, Marionetta. 
Now for the first time he creates a woman 
wJiose part, not merely in the story but in the 
disputations and the satire, is prominent and 
important ; who does not scheme, nor appeal 
to the men by judicious use of feminine attitudes, 
but can meet them on their own ground and 
prove an agreeable companion. Gifted with 
a cynical wit and shrewd sense, with a true but 
not unkindly perception of the foibles and 
weaknesses of others, equally devoid of illusions 
and of bitterness, she joins easily in the conversa- 
tion — by no means small talk — at the Castle, 
with remarks whose absence would leave it 
appreciably poorer. In Peacock's works, through 
all that is merely sarcastic, aU the intellectually 
farcical and all the superficially indiscriminate 
banter, there is always more or less clearly 
discernible the expression of his own pet theories, 
fancies and private preferences. The speeches 
of Lady Clarinda soon make it exceedingly plain, 
first, that she is a personal favourite with the 
author, and second, that he has endowed her 
with a number of his own qualities. The 
following description, for instance, though with 
a different implication, might be as aptly applied 
to his conversation as to that of his puppet : 
" The captain . . . could never draw from her 

309 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

any reply but the same doctrines of worldly 
wisdom, delivered in a tone of badinage, mixed 
with a certain kindness of manner that induced 
him to hope she was not in earnest." Many of 
his opinions are uttered incidentally by this 
character, but more significant still, he does her 
the supreme honour of putting into her mouth 
his own description of the guests at the dinner- 
table. 

Two important characters remain, who are 
both used to a large extent as interpreters of 
Peacock's own personality ; but in each case 
this is strangely interwoven with other and 
irreconcileable elements. In their theories they 
are largely opposed to each other ; one is openly 
ridiculed by the author ; the other is successfully 
controverted by Mr. Macquedy. In these cir- 
cumstances it is somewhat remarkable that 
different readers have found Peacock's point of 
view, entirely and exclusively, in the doings and 
sayings of Mr. Chainmail or of Dr. Folliott. 

Association with Shelley had made Peacock 
almost a propagandist. In the years of their 
friendship he wrote with more passion, more of 
the " singleness of purpose " so much desired 
by the poet, than he ever infused into subsequent 
books. In the early novels his opinions are 
definitely expressed and easy to discover. In 

310 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

drotchet Castle^ on the contrary, he has no desire 
bo persuade ; he is impartial as far as his nature 
permits ; his own opinions are of less importance 
fchan those of his characters. To such an extent 
is this true, that they are not represented in the 
speeches of one or even two persons, but scattered 
about and divided among at least six of the party. 
If he had only written this book it would be impos- 
sible to state precisely the author's private point 
of view, though it would be a pardonable mistake 
to identify him, as many have done, with the 
gluttonous, prejudiced, reactionary, genial and 
captivating Doctor. But the essential error 
lies in seeking for positive pronouncements 
where only negative are to be found. During 
the past twelve years Peacock had been cut off 
from the most inspiring comradeship of his life ; 
those years had been passed in London and in 
close contact with many of the wire-pullers and 
axe-grinders of the day ; they had brought him 
more opportunities of observation and knowledge, 
but not more enthusiasm. The arrival of his 
forty-fifth birthday, if it had softened some 
youthful bitterness, had not presented him with 
a fresh stock of illusions. Crotchet Castle, an 
essentially middle-aged production, is entirely 
non-constructive. It is a criticism, and its main 
drift is an exposure of cant in all its manifesta- 

311 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

tions. Sentimental cant, philosophical, philan- 
thropic, economic cant, the cant of literary 
people and scientific specialists, is here repre- 
sented by the usual set of typical personages. 
In opposition to these at various points are 
ranged three characters, far more individually 
and closely studied, who do undoubtedly express 
between them a large measure of Peacock's 
personal attitude, though they air his dislikes 
more freely than his likes. Lady Clarinda, 
the keen scrutineer of persons, and Mr. Chain- 
mail, who regrets the ages of greater simphcity, 
when there was less opportunity for cant to 
flourish in the great variety of its present day 
activities, each has his marked sympathy. Yet 
Lady Clarinda passes sentence on her own pro- 
fessed philosophy by marrying a poor man ; 
while Mr. Chainmail is convicted of the possession 
of illusions, approaching very near to cant, and 
finally violates one of his strongest principles by 
uniting himself with the daughter of a money- 
lender, " one who in the twelfth century would 
have been plucked by the beard." The Rev. 
Doctor is the most logical and, as things are, the 
most powerful enemy of cant. Having himself 
no illusions or ideals, he does not believe in those 
sincerely or falsely professed by others. Peacock 
attributes to him many of his own traits — his 

312 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

classical proficiency and partiality for Nonnus, 
his hatred of Brougham and all his works, his 
aversion to the Scotch and the political economists. 
But it is noticeable that he doeis not credit him 
with superior spiritual qualities. He lends him, 
not a wittier tongue, but a louder voice than the 
rest. He does not scruple to ridicule him. The 
Doctor becomes drunken and passionate at table, 
and has to be called to order ; in the argument 
on the Venuses he is overcome by a self-taught 
merchant, and left with a decidedly unintellectual 
side presented to the company. He is a favourite 
with the author and the reader, and rightly so. 
Most happily the Comic Spirit triumphed among 
the claimants to the patronage of this book. 
Cant is not to be seriously outpreached or 
philosophically dissected, but boisterously shout- 
ed down. Its arch-enemy is found not in a 
sermonising Forester, nor even in a stern and 
logical Escot, but in this worldly, dogmatic, 
exclusive scholar. Some of his jokes and re- 
partees belong to a type new in Peacock's writings, 
showing the humour of character rather than of 
pure intellect. It is doubtful if he could ever 
stand up to Mr. Macquedy in a logical discussion : 
he overpowers him by violence and prejudice : 

Mr, Macquedy, " Laughter is an involuntary 
action of certain muscles, developed in the 

313 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

human species by the progress of civilisation. 
The savage never laughs." 

The Rev. Dr. FollioU. " No, sir, he has nothing 
to laugh at. Give him Modern Athens, the 
Learned Friend, and the Steam Intellect Society. 
They will develop his muscles." 

The frank non-morality of the Doctor, the 
economic philosophy of Mr. Macquedy, the 
sentimentality of the Captain, the airy cynicism 
of Lady Clarinda, the absurdity of the scientists ; 
in the interplay of these lies the main interest 
of the greater part of Crotchet Castle. In these 
conversations and comments Peacock is certainly 
seen at the height of his brilliance as satirist and 
stylist. They have the perfection of maturity 
— strength without violence, confidence and 
precision, all the old keenness with the added 
mellowness of time. With a wantonness peculiar 
to himself he has, by the mere subterfuge of an 
excursion up the Thames and Severn and the 
EUesmere Canal, tacked on to these studies in 
scholarly idiosyncracy a love story, threatening 
every now and then to become a pastoral romance, 
taking place in North Wales and entirely un- 
connected with the beginning and end of the 
story. With this as with all his wayward deeds, 
it is useless to ask how Peacock could have 
permitted himself so flagrant a violation of the 

314 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

proprieties. If we like this quarter of the book, 
let us thank him for it ; if its presence offends us, 
our capacity for enjoyment is sadly limited. It 
has already been pointed out that these chapters 
have an autobiographical foundation. In Mr. 
Chainmail are curiously combined Peacock's 
actual situation in 1810 and his mood at the time 
of writing Maid Marian, Here he goes through 
the same experiences of falling in love first with 
the mountain scenery and afterwards with a 
mountain maid, that had been the lot of the 
author twenty years before. " The Dingle " of 
Chapter XIV. is a ravine near Maentwrog, a 
haunt of Peacock's at that time ; and the strange 
name and parentage attributed to the girl in the 
story, a recognised portrait of Jane Gryffydh, are 
but a device to connect her with the other principal 
characters. When she has conquered the heart 
and, a more difficult achievement, overruled the 
principles of her admirer, one half of the author's 
task is completed, and we are prepared for a simi- 
lar consummation on the banks of the Thames. 
The genial satire and the latter-day idyll alike lead 
up to the routing of aristocratic prejudice and of 
the pounds-shillings-and-pence philosophy. The 
final note is struck in Lady Clarinda's song : 

In the days of old. 
Lovers felt true passion, 

315 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Deeming years of sorrow 

By a smile repaid. 

Now the charms of gold, ! 

Spells of pride and fashion, 

Bid them say good morrow j 

To the best-loved maid. | 

i 

Through the forests wild. 
O'er the mountains lonely. 
They were never weary 
Honour to pursue : 
If the damsel smiled 
Once in seven years only. 
All their wanderings dreary 
Ample guerdon knew. 

Now one day's caprice 
Weighs down years of smiling, 
Youthful hearts are rovers. 
Love is bought and sold : 
Fortune's gifts may cease, 
Love is less beguiling ; 
Wiser were the lovers. 
In the days of old. 

After Crotchet Castle Peacock's activity as a 
literary man came to an almost complete 
cessation for many years. Growing absorption 
in business, increasing domestic loneliness and 
a rapidly extending acquaintance with public 
men and participation in public affairs, all no 
doubt contributed to render him disinclined for 
writing. When he was engaged in preparing 

316 



THE EAST INDIA HOUSE PERIOD 

evidence for Parliamentary committees, on 
navigation or finance, in conferring with experts 
and explorers about the trade routes to India, 
in designing or superintending the construction 
of steamers, he can have had but a small amount 
of energy left for the work of the Comic Spirit. 
In 1835 he published four articles in The London 
Review — two on the opera, one being on the 
occasion of Bellini's death, and two on the 
French comic romance writers. The latter deal 
with the predecessors of Paul de Kock, and are 
professedly introductory to a more minute study 
of that writer ; this however was never accom- 
plished. Probably about the same time was 
begun the autobiographical Chertsey, soon aban- 
doned and the material used for the Recollections 
of Childhood, published in 1837, almost the last 
of the writings of this, his third period. Two 
copies of verses and one article, a review of 
some works on Indian poetry, alone intervene 
between this year and the commencement of 
his connection with Fraser^s Magazine, in whose 
pages appeared all the productions of his old age. 



317 



G 



IX 

" GRYLL GRANGE." 

Vintage of fifteen, j 

*' ^^-^ ASTRONOMY and Civilisation " is the 
title of an article in Fraser^s Maga- 
zine for December, 1851, signed " M. 
M." but easily recognisable by those who 
have a sufficient acquaintance with Peacock to 
give them a flair in these matters, as his work. 
When we read : " The light of the kitchen was 
probably the brightest spot in the dark ages," ; 
the style and sentiment make a familiar appeal. 
The citation and interpretation of classical 
authors, the same treatment of Italian and French 
writers, including Paul de Kock, add to the 
presumptive evidence, which is strengthened 
again by the insertion of a bill of fare of the 
year 1662, from the archives of the East India 
Company. The introduction of two lines from 
the Misfortunes of Elphin, the current use of one 
or two of Peacock's favourite phrases and 

318 I 



"GRYLL GRANGE" 

quotations, for instance, " Ale is his eating and 
his drinking solely," leave little doubt as to the 
authorship. But the author of Headlong Hall 
had at one time made a name for himself in the 
world of letters, and later on in the official 
world : he was known well, if not widely. This 
article may be the production of some unscrupu- 
lous imitator or enthusiastic admirer. So far, 
possibly. But turn the page, and we find a 
reference to the " Adventures of Jack of Dover 
in search of a greater fool than himself," so well 
discussed subsequently by the visitors to Gryll 
Grange. The same atmosphere is created by a 
contrasting of Bojardo and Berni ; and towards 
the end comes a passage paraphrased at length 
by the Rev. Dr. Opimian : " We like to see our 
dinner," says the writer, and proceeds to mention 
Addison's objection to having the solid dishes 
placed on a sideboard, to express his dislike of 
seeing the food " distributed like rations to 
paupers," and his disapproval of leaving the 
carving in the hands of servants who cannot 
distinguish between the head and tail of a mullet 
and the wing and thigh of a fowl. Then follows 
what may be taken to be the signature : " The 
fashion to which we allude will render necessary 
the establishment of a college of carving ; and 
a professor of the side- table, who has finished 

319 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

his education with credit, and received his 
degree, will become as important a personage as 
the cook himself." Either, then. Peacock is the 
author of this article, or the writer of it imitated 
Peacock and copied from his early works, and was 
in turn plagiarised and imitated by his former 
victim in the pages of Gryll Grange, The easier 
supposition is also the more reasonable. 

The point is not of extreme importance. 
Biographically it only sets Peacock's connection 
with Fraser's Magazine forward by three months, 
for in the following March and April appeared 
the first two of his HorcE Dramaticce. But the 
article is a striking illustration of a quality 
which, although attention has not yet been 
pointedly drawn to it, must already have been 
noticed by the reader — our author's literary 
parsimony. Between the novels themselves 
there is not much repetition, no more perhaps 
than it would be reasonable to expect in the 
writings of a critic and satirist whose main in- 
terests were the same throughout his life. But 
between the novels and the minor works, includ- 
ing unpublished matter, contributions to the 
periodicals, and less known works like Sir Proteus 
and Paper Money Lyrics, they are exceedingly 
numerous. It seems as if Peacock, having once 
made a good joke or discovered a new truth or 

320 



"GRYLL GRANGE" 

analogy, was unusually loth to let it be wasted, 
but was always pleased to give it to the world 
twice over, so long as the writings containing 
the repeated matter were not known to be by the 
same author. This habit, in addition to the 
intensely personal flavour of his style and the 
originality of his criticism, makes it an easy 
task to identify his unsigned work. He may 
keep his individuality in the background so long 
as he is engaged in detailed and technical criti- 
cism, as in his article on the History of Greek 
Literature by Miiller and Donaldson (1859) ; 
but it is impossible for him to talk to us for long 
together on any subject of general interest with- 
out momentarily removing the mask of the 
journalist and giving us a glimpse of his true 
physiognomy. His other articles in Fraser call 
for little particular notice. The earlier Horce 
Dramaticce show him not only as a sound 
scholar but as an imaginative critic : while the 
last, that on the Flask of Cratinus, suggests the 
halloo of a schoolboy at the beginning of the 
summer holidays rather than the sigh of relief 
of a man who has just retired, at the age of 
seventy, from a busy and responsible position. 
From this time onward he uses no more pseudo- 
nyms or fanciful initials, but confesses to the 
authorship of his articles. In 1858 came the 

321 V 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

first instalment of his Memoir of Shelley, fol- 
lowed by the second in 1860. From April to 
December of that year Gryll Grange appeared 
in Fraser as a serial and, as the Edinburgh 
remarked some few years later, completely mys- 
tified most of its readers, who were unacquainted 
with the author's previous novels. 

So after the lapse of thirty years Peacock is 
going to talk again with us. Let us listen to 
him once more : it is the last conversation we 
shall hold with him, and, as is fitting, the most 
intimate of all. Several times during the long 
interval he has tried to break silence. In 
Chertsey he was to tell us more about himself 
as a young man : in Cotswold Chace he gave us 
yet another picture of his wife ; here too he 
mentioned his boyhood and the days when he j 
would spend half -holidays reading by the river 
or under the woods ; and he was to give us a 
fuller knowledge of his youthful friend, " Charles," 1 
of the Recollections of Childhood, He is now old 
enough to regret that long past time : " Those 
were pleasant days. I do not think we grow 
happier as we grow older — as the bloom of novelty '' 
fades from life " ; and again : "I am not j 
imsocial, but society as it is now constituted is i 
not much to my mind." In St Katherine he j 
appears at an even more advanced age ; and 

322 



"GRYLL GRANGE" 

what he tells us here squares well enough with 
what is related of him by others. A favourite 
amusement in the summer was an excursion by 
water to Newark Abbey or the ruinous tower of 
St. Katherine higher up the stream ; and in 
the winter, a good fire and good company. He 
" cared very little about game-preserving and 
very much about classical literature. He had 
considerable liberality of opinion and was 
tolerant of all differences from his own, and 
implacable only in his detestation of tobacco, 
which he strictly banished to the turnpike road." 
And here St. Katherine comes abruptly to an end. 
Much of this fragment was incorporated in 
Gryll Grange, where still further information 
about the author is plainly set forth. A hand- 
some pension " placed him sufficiently above the 
cares of the world to enable him to gratify all 
his tastes without minute calculations of cost. 
His tastes in fact were four : a good library, a 
good dinner, a pleasant garden, and rural walks," 
to which should be added, a boat on the river. 
In all its arrangements his house was a model 
of order and comfort ; and the whole establish- 
ment partook of the genial physiognomy of the 
master. From the master and mistress to the 
cook, and from the cook to the tom cat, there 
was about the inhabitants a sleek and purring 

323 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

rotundity of face and figure that denoted com- 
munity of feelings, habits and diet ; each in its 
kind, of course, for the master had his port, the 
cook her ale, and the cat his milk, in sufficiently 
liberal allowance." . . . 

So far Peacock has been describing himself as 
the Rev. Dr. Opimian. " An athlete in pedes- 
trianism," in his early days, a specialist in cookery 
as in classical studies, a lover above all and always 
of retirement and peace, he has much in common 
with this genial cleric. But, as in the character 
of Dr. Folliott and others, the identification is 
neither consistent nor complete. For though 
in many passages, notably for instance in his 
first conversation with Mr. Falconer, the Doctor 
is little more than a puppet uttering the senti- 
ments of the author, in others he is a type — the 
best type as Peacock conceived it — of the country 
clergyman. Moreover, following his old practice, 
although attributing his own tastes to the 
Doctor, Peacock has adumbrated his personal 
circumstances in those of Squire Gryll and his 
goddaughter, while the most exact information 
as to his studies is contained in the account of 
Mr. Falconer's library. " The books of the lower 
circle were all classical ; those of the upper, 
English, Italian and French, with a few volumes 
in Spanish." The last words are significant. 

324 



"GRYLL GRANGE" 

Peacock had learned Spanish in the last decade 
of his life. In his Memoir of Shelley he expresses 
for the first time an opinion on a Spanish author, 
and there is but one quotation in that language 
to be found in all his writings, at the head of 
Chapter XXVIII. of Gryll Grange, 

Too full of experience to be sanguine, too 
uncompromising to apply any criticism but that 
of ideal morality, too vigorous to be whoU}' 
apathetic, incapable of changing with the times, 
Peacock's old age was bound to alternate between 
vituperative moments and the hours of happiness 
spent in the seclusion of his garden or study and 
in converse with his intimates. The remarkable 
lack of bitterness in Gryll Grange is attributable 
to the fact that he was growing more and more 
fond of the latter way of passing time, and 
tending less and less to hope, and therefore 
to care very much about public affairs. He 
had " retired " from following these almost 
as completely as from his official position. His 
old enemies, the Tories, seem to have vanished 
from the scene and given way to the Conserva- 
tives, whom he cannot place, and whose name 
strikes him as a misnomer. Indeed, one of the 
few sound things in a canting and unstable world 
is a glass of old Madeira, '' which really is what 
it is called." The Liberals have not fulfilled 

325 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

the promise of 1832. Commercialism has arisen 
with its attendant dangers, diseases and white 
slavery. Brougham, Lord Facing-both-ways, 
has many years since definitely abandoned the 
party which in the old days founded such hopes 
on him, and spends his time making melodramatic 
speeches in the Lords and giving omniscient 
harangues to the Social Science Association, 
here eulogised as the Pantopragmatic Society. 
Lord John Russell, " the Gracchus of the last 
Reform," has apparently well deserved to be 
called " the Sisyphus of this " : after agitating 
for twenty years for another Bill to remove the 
abuses left intact by the former, he at last intro- 
duces a measure in 1854, but withdraws it on 
Palmerston's threatening to resign. Is the 
author of Melincourt to celebrate him as a capable 
politician, or to regard him as Lord Michin 
Malecho, who means mischief ? Peacock is 
also bitterly disappointed with America, as 
what old Radical could fail to be ? He detests 
its judicial and political corruption, its savagery 
and its persistence in the use of slaves. He 
feels too that the English Government is largely 
to blame for allowing free trade in West Indian 
produce, and thus encouraging slavery in other 
dominions. For this he has been called a Tory. 
So be it : from the party point of view he was 

326 



*'GRYLL GRANGE" 

no doubt a traitor : but he was thinking of the 
slaves, not of the polling at the next election. 
Popular education had been begun, on the wrong 
lines it has not yet left, and was already showing 
some of its unpleasant results ; while the intro- 
duction of competitive examinations for the 
India Office and other Government branches 
seemed to promise a generation of officials of 
guaranteed mediocrity and the elimination of 
special talent. 

All these are unpleasing considerations, but 
they trouble the serenity of Gryll Grange very 
little. Like Peacock at Halliford, its characters 
live a secluded life on the borders of the New 
Forest, where echoes from the outside reach them, 
though faintly, just often enough to remind them 
that they are better off in their rural peace than 
in a world where most things are going wTong. 
Where ambition and greed have not falsified 
men's outlook there is in human nature a pre- 
ponderance of good. Life is eminently enjoyable 
to the man who prizes its really valuable aspects, 
and men and women both estimable and lovable : 

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. " No doubt, of the 
recorded facts of civil life some are good, and 
more are indifferent, neither good nor bad ; but 
good and indifferent together are scarcely more 
than a tweKth part of the whole. Still, the 

327 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

matters thus presented are all exceptional cases. 
A hermit reading nothing but a newspaper might 
find little else than food for misanthropy ; but 
living among friends, and in the bosom of our 
family, we see that the dark side of life is the 
occasional picture, the bright is its everyday 
aspect. The occasional is a matter of curiosity, 
of incident, of adventure, of things that really 
happen to few and may possibly happen to any. 
The interest attendant on any action or event 
is in just proportion to its rarity ; and, happily, 
quiet virtues are all around us, and obtrusive 
vices seldom cross our path. On the whole, 
I agree in opinion with Theseus, that there is 
more good than evil in the world." 

Mrs, Opimian, " I think. Doctor, you would 
not maintain any opinion if you had not an 
authority two thousand years old for it." 

The Rev, Dr, Opimian, " Well, my dear, I 
think most opinions worth maintaining have an 
authority of about that age." 

Here speaks the author of Headlong Hall : 
the old preferences, the old dislikes, the old 
criticism is here, but the tone has been mellowing 
since 1815, until the violence and bitterness have 
disappeared, leaving a greater discrimination, 
if less incisive force ; more human interest, if 
less sparkling comedy. The political mis- 

328 



"GRYLL GRANGE" 

demeanours of the Lake poets even have been 
forgotten, and only their beauties remembered : 
exception is now taken, though how soberly ! 
to Tennyson's misconceptions and Longfellow's 
want of scholarship. Within the frame of the 
actual novel, discussion has taken the place of 
argument — there is not a single dispute in Gryll 
Grange — tolerance of intolerance ; satire is still 
present, but satire of a kind that springs more 
from love than from hate : Peacock has not even 
the heart to ridicule Lord Curryfin without more 
than compensating for it by making him 
interesting and socially popular, accomplished 
and courageous. Can this be the author who 
last wrote of Mr. Henbane and Dr. Morbific ? 
And so with all the rest. Can the creator of Mr. 
Maclaurel actually bring himself to describe a 
Scotch economist as Mr. Macborrowdale is here 
described ? Can he admit that the old physician 
who was called to attend Miss Gryll at the Tower 
was good as well as clever ? Can it be that in 
his happier social surroundings he has forgotten 
the Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney and discovered Miss 
Ilex ? Ay, this and much more he tells us in 
his last talk. Not only is there more good than 
evil in the world, but good may come out of evil ; 
misfortune is sometimes half a blessing, and 
disappointment often not so final as it seems at 

329 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

the time. So far Gryll Grange is merely an old 
man's edition of Headlong Hall. Were it not for 
a few outbursts, saving the book from being 
unduly soft, it would read almost like a general 
recantation. 

But there is another strand of thought, the 
result, not of fresh experience, but of reminis- 
cence and reflection, running through this tale, 
and embodied in the most whimsical character 
that Peacock ever drew, to which moreover he 
has himself given us the key. Gryll Grange was 
probably written during the eighteen months 
between the publications of the first and second 
parts of the Memoir of Shelley : it was in any 
case completed during the years when Peacock's 
mind was habitually dwelling upon the time, 
more than four decades before, when he and 
Shelley had been intimate friends. In the inter- 
val Peacock had acquired a lifetime of experience, 
in surroundings utterly unlike those in which 
the friends had lived, or those they had imagined 
or desired. Spiritually he had conquered in the 
ordeal. Recognition and success had mellowed 
and not spoiled him. As a natural concomitant, 
he had remained unchanged in other less funda- 
mental but more daily noticeable characteristics : 
incorruptibility in his case implied and included 
a lack of adaptability. He had thus lived on, 

330 



"GRYLL GRANGE" 

a true relic of Shelley's circle at Bracknell and 
Marlow, into another age. And by a curious 
coincidence, for it can hardly have been inten- 
tional parallelism, his last contemporary study, 
like the latest known comedy of his favourite 
Aristophanes, differs typically from its prede- 
cessors. Personal abuse and satire are reduced 
to a minimum ; no living character at any rate 
is put upon the stage for ridicule. In comparison 
with the early novels Gryll Grange is as the Comedy 
of Manners compared with the Old Comedy. 
Its comment, even when topical, is generalised ; 
the characters are shadows not of public life 
but of the imagination ; their conversation has 
little allusive or extraneous interest. Yet in 
Peacock's creative work there is always a con- 
siderable intermixture of what is easily recog- 
nisable as his own experience and observation 
of his friends. How far these have entered into 
the characterisation and speeches of many of 
the persons in Gryll Grange it is impossible to say, 
although one feels perfectly sure, for instance, 
that he had known Miss Ilex and Miss Niphet. 
Yet, feeUng himself to be a survival of the old 
days, largely out of his place and happy only 
in retirement, he has put himself into the book ; 
and he has likewise introduced Shelley. But it 
is not entirely the Shelley of the days of Melin" 

331 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

court In thinking over that time, one of the 
most natural questions for him to ask himself 
was : How would Shelley have developed if he 
had lived on, instead of dying at the age of twenty 
nine ? and the last paragraph of his second notice 
of Shelley, so significant in many respects, con- 
tains a passage especially apposite in this con- 
nection : " I can conceive him, if he had lived 
to the present time, passing his days like Volney, 
looking on the world from his windows without 
taking part in its turmoils ; and perhaps like the 
same, or some other great apostle of liberty (for 
I cannot at this moment verify the quotation), 
desiring that nothing should be inscribed on his 
tomb, but his name, the dates of his birth and 
death, and the single word : Desillusionne." 
It is this conception that Peacock has attempted 
in part to embody in the character of Algernon 
Falconer, though for the purposes of the plot 
he represents him as a young man. 

Before accepting or rejecting this identification, 
the reader is asked to dismiss for the moment 
his own idea of the man or the poet Shelley, 
and to think only of Peacock's interpretation 
of him as expressed both in the Memoir and in 
the series of the early novels. 

If we pass over the similarity of sound 
between Foster and Forester, and of sound and 

332 



"GRYLL GRANGE" 

sense between Forester and Falconer, there is 
still a remarkable similarity in the treatment of 
the two latter characters, sufficient to make the 
second distinctly reminiscent of the first. Per- 
haps this comes out most strikingly in the manner 
of their presentation to the reader. In each 
case this is effected by a wanderer, who either 
is or becomes a great friend of the person about 
to be introduced, and who as has already been 
seen is intended to represent, in the first novel 
Jefferson Hogg, and in the last, Peacock. In 
each case again the wanderer comes upon an old 
building in a wood, lately deserted and partly 
ruinous, and finds it enclosed and inhabited. In 
each case the building is repaired in such a way 
that the restorations and additions are invisible 
from the entrance and the surrounding trees 
left intact. What lies behind this identity 
of circumstance it would be hard to say. 
If it were merely a fancy of Peacock's, it 
is hardly probable that he would have re- 
peated it so closely in two novels. From 
Shelley's known predilection for walking and 
working, and spending as much time as possible 
in the woods, both in England and Italy, it seems 
most likely that these descriptions of woodland 
dwellings have reference to an ambition of his, 
to live in such a place. The general resemblances 

333 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

in the characters of Forester and Falconer 
hardly need to be pointed out ; but one or two 
traits of the actual Shelley, which Peacock thought 
sufficiently salient to be chronicled in his Memoir^ 
and which are attributed to Algernon Falconer 
in Gryll Grange, may be shortly stated. And 
amongst the most important, especially in our 
author's estimation, is a man's reading. The 
taste for Italian and Greek literature, though a 
case in point, is of minor significance ; for Pea- 
cock allows a fondness for these studies to most 
of the characters for whom he has any respect. 
Far more distinctive is Falconer's attachment 
to the novels of Charles Brockden Brown. 
Speaking of a number of writers of less dubious 
immortality by whom Shelley was particularly 
impressed, Peacock says : " These had great 
influence on his style, and Coleridge on his 
imagination ; but admiration is one thing and 
assimilation is another ; and nothing so blended 
itseK with the structure of his interior mind as 
the creations of Brown." Here then is one 
eminently Shelleyan characteristic ; and another 
is to be traced in the Spanish books in Falconer's 
library. These, and notably the Autos of Cal- 
deron, are the works which chiefly led Shelley to 
study the language, and of which he writes en- 
thusiastically from Italy. Indeed one wonders 

334 



"GRYLL GRANGE" 

I whether it were altogether a chance desire, or 
! long-postponed ambition, that led Peacock to 
I take up Spanish in his old age, or whether he 
were not drawn to it by the re-reading of Shelley's 
letters and a determination to employ part of 
his newly-acquired leisure in entering as fully as 
possible into any hitherto unexplored region of 
his friend's mind. 

Shelley's devotion to types of ideal beauty, 
his tendency to live in the immaterial rather 
than the material world, and to confuse the two, 
and the disillusionment that Peacock thought 
would have been his lot if he had lived on, are 
explicitly set forth in the Memoir. They are 
all expressed with equal distinctness in Gryll 
Grange, and may be most shortly illustrated in 
three scraps of dialogue, in whose sentiments 
there is a strange intermixture of the Shelley of 
1817, and the hypothetical Shelley of forty years 
later, while his interlocutor is Peacock at the 
time of writing. Here for the last time we shall 
take the liberty of re-translating the names of 
Peacock's characters into those of their originals : 

Peacock : At present your faith is simply poetical. But 
take care, my young friend, that you do not finish by 
becoming the dupe of your own mystification. 

Shelley : I have no fear of that. I think I can clearly 
distinguish devotion to ideal beauty from supei-stitious 
belief. I feel the necessity of some such devotion to fill up 

335 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

the void which the world as it is leaves in my mind 

And the saint whom I have chosen presents to my mind 
the most perfect ideality of physical, moral, and intellectual 
beauty. 

Peacock : I cannot object to your taste. But I do hope 
you will not be led into investing the ideality with too 
much of the semblances of reality. I should be soiTy to 
find you far gone in hagiolatiy. I hope you will acquiesce 
in Martin, keeping equally clear of Peter and Jack. 

Shelley : Nothing will more eiFectually induce me so to 
acquiesce than your company. (Chap. IX,) 
* * it * * 

Peacock : You are determined to connect the immaterial 
with the material world, as far as you can. 

Shelley : I like the immaterial world. I like to live 
among thoughts and images of the past and the possible, 
and even of the impossible, now and then. 

Peacock : Certainly there is much in the material world 
to displease sensitive and imaginative minds ; but I do not 
know anyone who has less cause to complain of it than you 
have 

Shelley : It is not my own world that I complain of. 
It is the world on which I look " from the loopholes of 
retreat.'** .... I look with feelings of intense pain on 
the mass of poverty and crime ; of unhealthy, unavailing, 
and unremunerative toil, blighting childhood in its 
blossom, and womanhood in its prime ; of " all the 
oppressions that are done under the sun."" 

Peacock : I feel with you on all these points ; but there 
is much good in the world ; more good than evil, I have 
always maintained. (Chap. XI.) 

****** 

Peacock : You look as little like a disappointed man 

any I have seen 

Shelley : We are all bom to disappointment. It is as 

336 



"GRYLL GRANGE" 

well to be prospective. Our happiness is not in what is, 
but in what is to be. We may be disappointed in our 
everyday realities, and if not, we may make an ideality of 
the unattainable, and quarrel with Nature for not giving 
us what she has not to give. It is unreasonable to be so 

disappointed, but it is disappointment not the less 

Peacock : I am afraid I am too matter-of-fact to sym- 
pathise very clearly with this form of aestheticism : but 
here is a charming bit of forest scenery ! Look at that old 
oak with the deer under it (Chap. IV.) 

The most obvious passage to be pointed out in 
the above extracts as a repetition from the 
Memoir is that containing the image of Falconer 
looking upon the world " from the loopholes of 
retreat " ; but is there not also observable more 
than one touch of Scythrop and Mr. Hilary ? 

There is one more fact which c innot be over- 
looked, indicating how the recollection of the 
old days at Bracknell and Marlow was drawn 
upon for the composition of this book. The 
paragraph in Chapter XII. containing the ac- 
count of the forest dell, to which Mr. Falconer 
walks when trying to rid himself of the obsession 
of Morgana' s image, is merely an expansion of 
the two sentences in The Last Day of Windsor 
Forest, describing the Bourne, a spot which Pea- 
cock tells us he had not seen since he was in the 
habit of visiting it with Shelley. With the 
memory of this friend he ends up his life as a 
novelist, as he had begun it with his company. 

337 w 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

This reincarnation seems a remarkable proof both 
of the mighty influence exercised by Shelley upon 
Peacock, and of the intimate nature of his 
writings. The more we knew of his life, the 
better would be our understanding of his novels. 
The impression given by Gryll Grange is, that it 
is a very strong case in point ; in reading it, the 
conviction grows that it could only have been 
fully commented by those who knew Peacock 
at Hallif ord, during the years intervening between^ 
his retirement and his death, early in 1866. 

Thus many of the regular elements of the 
Peacockian novel are present, though in a lesa 
obvious form, in this work of his old age. Com- 
pared with the rest it is more subdued an< 
reflective, and even more personal and idiosjni- 
cratic. Already in Crotchet Castle it is noticeable 
that Peacock is introducing more of himself an< 
less of other people than in his earlier books, 
In this epilogue to all his works — in poetry, 
fiction, criticism — the tendency to write abou^ 
himself is seen to have grown strong enough to \ 
become the leading element of the book. This 
is accompanied, perhaps necessarily, by a re- 
markable artistic carelessness and by a supreme 
neglect of his public. He is now writing purely j 
and simply to please himself, and he has grown ' 
garrulous. Peacock is so personally popular 

338 



*'GRYLL GRANGE" 

with his readers that we are willing to forgive 
him many things. We suffer him, with but a faint 
protest, to tell us under cover of fiction, that he 
once knew a man who tried hard to cut the figure 
9 on the ice, and could only succeed by fitting it 
in between two 8's ; to recapitulate the stages 
whereby he satisfied himself that the hair of the 
Vestals was allowed to grow again, once their 
heads had been shaved ; to repeat long passages 
of Bojardo, and translate them ; to express a 
puerile contempt for geological discoveries. But 
to say truth, the licence of this book is not com- 
pensated by the violent, witty exaggerations of 
the first novels. Gryll Grange is far from his 
masterpiece, and it would be interesting to know 
if any one, unacquainted with his other works, 
had read it and remained much impressed. 
The sympathetic handling of its characters is 
undoubtedly an attraction ; but the story is 
preposterous and long drawn out. We can feel 
no anxiety for the fate of Harry and Dorothy, 
of Algernon and Morgana, of Lord Curryfin and 
Miss Niphet. The interest is inevitably centred 
in the author. We must be content to listen to 
him while he talks to us of his tastes and habits, 
chats to us about things which have been 
occupying his attention, tells us anecdotes. 
He is a genial and kindly old man, but easily 
339 



1 

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

upset by anything that worries him. He seldom 
dines out nowadays, except with one friend of 
his own age, at whose table he is sure his palate 
will not be annoyed and his taste for quiet 
conviviality and good conversation will be in- 
dulged. Dinners at strange houses are such a 
risk. On one of the last occasions when he 
ventured upon one, he was served with the tail 
of a mullet, followed by the drumstick of a fowl. 
And then the after-dinner bore is so intolerable. 
He was present not so very long ago when a long- 
winded individual held forth to the uttermost 
limit of patience on " what's wrong with India," 
passing from city to city and from province to 
province in a merciless harangue, until he was 
forced to pause for breath. The man seated next 
took the opportunity to start another topic ; 
but the social tyrant touched his arm and said : 
" Excuse me ; now I come to Madras." Of 
course, on an occasion like that, the only thing 
to do is to take one's departure, and leave those 
who like it to listen to it. Reading is safer and 
more satisfying, especially Greek. There is 
enough Greek literature extant to provide 
interest for even a long lifetime, particularly if 
you go into side issues, the less known tracts of 
mythology and archaeology. How much there 
is that we still do not know about the Attic 

340 



f "GRYLL GRANGE" 

7 

' theatre ! Their resonant vases must have had 
i a wonderful effect ; but the principle seems to 
be lost now, perhaps irrecoverably. What a 
"i pity that we cannot find out more about their 
-" music ! The Greeks were people of such exquisite 
sensibility, and their poetry and sculpture 
^ reached such a pitch of perfection, that it is 
impossible to believe their music wets as bare 
\ and monotonous as the experts would make out. 
Their melodies at least must have been beautiful. 
( Yes, most beautiful things, most wise pronounce- 
[ ments, were made more than two thousand years 
ago. But the classical languages as used after 
V the break-up of antiquity are not entirely to be 
u despised. The latinity of many hymns and 
I sequences is tolerable, and their sentiments very 
s acceptable as an offset to the spirit of our machine- 
made civiHsation. Almost all old things are good, 
y^ Old fashioned dances are charming to watch ; 
{ the card games that were popular long ago form 
I an interesting study, and they are so much more 
S sociable than the modern play. Quadrille, for 
instance, is a game, and not like whist, a mere 
excuse for dogmatism and bad temper. Then 
'^^ the thoughts of age will be dwelling a good deal 
on the past : 

I played with you 'mid cowslips blowing. 
When I was six and you were four ; . . 

341 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 

Time has softened and sweetened most memories ; 
they can best be enjoyed in retirement, and are 
rudely disturbed by reports of current affairs. 
What a detestable thing a newspaper is ! It 
contains little that is pleasant or profitable to 
know, and is chiefly made up of the accounts of 
crimes and disasters, the speeches of insincere 
politicians, scandals ventilated in the law courts, 
meetings of ridiculous societies, fraudulent busi- 
ness concerns, and lying advertisements of useless 
or harmful medicines. To read the papers is 
to become misanthropic, whereas life among 
friends, and in one's own garden and library, 
conduces to geniality and cheerfulness. We can 1 
imagine what goes on in the busy world, without 
facing the horrors of railway travelling, smoke, 
foul air, gas lighting and crowded humanity to 
verify it. Or, on arrival of a younger but trusted 
friend, we can ask him : What news have you 
brought from London ? And we are pretty sure 
of the answer : " Not much. Tables turn as 
usual, and the ghost-trade appears to be thriving : 
for instead of being merely audible, the ghosts 
are becoming tangible, and shake hands under 
the tables with living wiseacres, who solemnly 
attest the fact. Civilised men ill-use their wives ; 
the wives revenge themselves in their own way, 
and the Divorce Court has business enough on its 

342 



*'GRYLL GRANGE" 

hands to employ it twenty years at its present 
state of progression. Commercial bubbles burst 
and high-pressure boilers blow up, and mounte- 
banks of all descriptions flourish on public credu- 
lity. Everywhere there are wars and rumours 
of wars. The Peace Society has wound up its 
affairs in the Insolvent Court of Prophecy. A 
great tribulation is coming on the earth, and 
ApoUyon in person is to be perpetual dictator of 
all the nations. There is a meeting of the Panto- 
pragmatic Society, under the presidency of 
Lord Facing-both-ways, who has opened it with 
a long speech, philanthropically designed as an 
elaborate exercise in fallacies, for the benefit of 
young rhetoricians. The society has divided its 
work into departments, which are to meddle 
with everything, from the highest to the lowest 
— from a voice in legislation to a finger in Jack 
Horner's pie. ... In the meantime, we are all 
pretty comfortable : and sufficient for the day 
is the evil thereof ; which in our case, so far as 
I can see, happens to be precisely none.*' 



343 



Index 



B 



^ BBEY House, the, 23- 

"^ Addison, Joseph, 319 

AhrimaneSy 11 2- 115, 124-129 
Ancient Metaphysics^ 42 
Antijack, Mr. Anyside, 145-6, 
186 

^RITISH Critic, the, 

83-4 
Brougham, Lord, 

i45> 304-6, 326 
Brown,CharlesBrockden,334 
Bryon,Lord, 139,210-1 1,301-3 

^^ALIDORE, 87, 89, 

( 236-243 

V-^ Campbell, Thomas, 

66,141,145,161,280 

Canning, Rt. Hon. George, 

145-6, 186, 286-9 
Chainmail, Mr., 93, 310, 312, 

315 
Chertsey, 19, 29 
Chertsey, 156, 317, 322 
Circle of Loda, the, 60-63 
Clairmont, Charles, 153 
Clairmont, Clare, 151 
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 

141, 146, 184-5, 207-9, 

217, 280, 282, 307-8 
Cotswold Chace, 93, 322 
Country Houses, 29-31 
Cranium, Mr., 96 
Cranium, Miss Cephalis, 96 
Critical Review, 50, 52-3 
Croker, John Wilson, 183-4 
Crotchet Castle, 90-91, 93, 

94, 211, 282, 304-16 

E Kock, Paul, 317, 318 
Dilettanti, the, 129, 
130-32 

AST India Company, 

2i9> 275» 316-17, 318 
Eavesdrop, Mr., 304 



D 
E 



Edinburgh Review, the, 138, 

162, 217 
Elphin, 288 
Englefield Green, 32 
Escot, Mr., 96, 158, 160 
Essay on Fashionable Liter- 
ature, 138, 197, 215-16 

FACING-BOTH-WAYS 
Lord, 326 
Falconer, Algernon, 
332-8 
Fax, Mr., 173 

Feathernest, Mr., 142-3, 175 
Fiolfar, King of Norway, 50, 

60 
Flosky, Ferdinand, Esq., 

146, 279 
Folliott, The Rev. Dr., 89, 

312-13 
Forester, Mr., 168-70 
Foster, Mr., 159 
Four Ages of Poetry, they 

126, 223, 276-7 
Eraser'' s Magazine, 3 1 7, 3 1 8-2 1 

GALL, Mr., 136-7 
Gaster, the Rev. Dr., 

I Gastronomy and Civilisation, 
j 318-20 
Genius of the Thames, the, 

57-9, 66-7, 71, 72-85 
Gifford, John, 65, 181 
Glowry, Scythrop, 157, 199- 

201 
Godwin, William, 71, 194-5 
Greenmould, Sir Gregory, 

181 
Grove, Harriet, 201-2 
Gryflfydh, Dr., 94-5 
Gryffydh, Jane, 93, 97, 103- 

4. 315 
Gryll Grange, 322-343 
Gryll, Squire, 324 



345 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 



HARPITON, 143 
Haut-ton, Sir Oran, 
2023, 39-44, 170, 
247-9 
Hawltaught, Captain, 2023 
Hazlitt, William, 304 
Headlong Hally 86, 94, 123, 
.i3o>i54,i55>i57-i66,23i-6 
Hilary, Mr., 212 
History of Greek Literature^ 

321 
Hogg, Jefferson, 142-3, 154, 

159, 171-2, 181, 215 
Hookham, Edward, 57,68,88 
Hookham, John, 57 
Horce DramaticcBy 91-2, 320 
Hunt, Henry Leigh, 36, 155, 

194-5, 221, 302 
Hunt, John, 223 

TLEX, Miss, 329, 331 

JACK of Dover, 319 
Jeffrey, Francis, 136-7 
Jenkinson, Mr., 159-60 

KILLTHEDEAD, Mr., 
183-4 
Knight, Cornelia, 71, 
132 
Knight, Richard Payne, 71, 
131 

ZAST Day of Windsor 
Forest, the, 272-3, 337 
Learned Friend, the, 

i45.« 304-6 
Lewis, *' Monk," 147 
Llywarch, Hen, 290-1 
London Magazine, the^ 277-9 
Love, Sarah, 18-19 
Love, Thomas, 18, 20-23 

Ty^ACLAUREL, Mr., 
Macquedy,Mr.,3o6-7 



Maentwrog, 86-7 

Magazine articles, see Pea- 
cock, T. L. 

Maid Marian, 197, 216, 218, 
224-5, 268-74 

Malthus, the Rev. T. R., 173 

i^flry^n/i, 96-7, 152,215,223 

McCulloch, 306-7 

Melincourt,2o-2^, 39-44, 141, 
167-193, 243-253 

Memoir of P. B. Shelley, 220, 
322 

Meredith, George, 220, 276 

Metaphor, Mr., 131 

Michin Malecho, Lord, 326 

Milestone, Marmaduke, Esq. 

133-4 
Mill, James, 275 
Mill, John Stuart, 275 
Misfortunes of Elphin, the, 

86,87,94,275-6,285-99, 318 
Monboddo, Lord, 41-44 
Monks of St. Mark, the, 46 
Monthly Preceptor, the, 36, 

39-41 
Monthly Review, the, 53-55 
Moore, Thomas, 280, 282-5, 

301-3 
Mythological Ode to the Spirit 

of Fire, 61 
Mystic, Mr., 146, 184-5 

NEWTON, J. F., 123- 
4, 158, 210 
Nightmare Abbey, 
194, 197-212, 259- 
268 

O 'CARROLL, Marion- 
etta, 202-205 
Opimian, the Rev. 
Dr., 319 
O'Prism, Sir Patrick, 135-6 
Origin and Progress of Lan- 
guage, 42 
Owen, William, 307 



346 



INDEX 



rkALMVRA, 46-50. 57. 

/^ 58. 72-3 . ^ 

■^ Pantopragmatic boc- 

iety, the, 326 
Paper Money, 184, 242, 

278-9 
Paper Money Lyrics, 279-82 
Paperstamp, Peter Paypaul, 

146, 182 
Paxarett, Sir Telegrraph, 

^7^-2 , ^ 

Peacock, Margaret Love, 27b 

Peacock, Mary Ellen, 275 

Peacock, Samuel, 18, 129 

Peacock, Sarah, see Love 

PEACOCK. THOMAS 
LOVE, 

birth, 18 

childhood, 19-20, 23-31 

schooling, 32-35 

in the City, 36 

attheBritish Museum^S 

in Scotland, 56 

at Chertsey, 57 

at sea, 64-67 

at Chertsey, 67-8 

at Cricklade, 68-69 

at Chertsey, 70 

in Wales, 85-97 

at Bracknell, 118-119 
in London, 150 
in Edinburgh, 149 
at Marlow, 152, 167, 

214-16 
in London, 219 
marriage, 222-3, 275 
at Halliford, 327 
old age, 323-5, 339-43 
death, 338 
habits, S8-92, 1 19-122, 

214-18 
reading, 33, 45» 5^y 65- 
66, 71, I49» 218, 290- 
292 



opinions, in Headlong 

Hall, 160-166 
Meliiicou rt, 1 68- 70, 

188-193 
Nightma re A bbey^ 

212 
Misfortinies of El- 

phtn, 295-7 
Crotchet Castle, 

309-16 
Gryll Orangey 325-7, 

Magazine Articles, 
277,278-9,282-3, 
300 
characteristics of novels, 

226-31 
lettersfrom school,33-35 
prize poem, 37-3^ 
early verses, 45-6 
letters to Hookham, 

57' 64-7, 85-97 
small poems, 111-12 
magazine articles, 221, 
276-9, 282-5, 299-303, 
317, 318-21 
diary, 90, 214-18 
other writings, see under 
separate titles 
Philosophy of Melancholy, 

the, 61, 87, 97-108, 113 
Pinmoney, the Hon. Mrs., 44 
Political Economy, 281 
Poppvseed, Miss Philomela, 

162 
Price, Sir Uvedale, 135-6 

y^\UARTERL V Review, 
tJie, 187-9, 2^ 



R 



RECOLLECTIONS of 

Childhood, 28-31,3^7 
Reform, parliament- 
ary, 179, 180, 326 
Repton, Humphrey, 133-4 



347 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 



Reviewers, 46, 50-55, 83-85, 

146 
Rhododaphne^ 61, 127-128, 

194, 213-14, 223, 253-8 
Round Table, the, 138 
Russell, Lord John, 326 

ST. KATHERINE, 323 
Sackbut, Roderick, 
Esq., 142 
Sarcastic, Mr., 178-180 
Satirist, the, 85 
Satyrane, 218-19 
Scott, Sir Walter, 53, 56, 65, 

147, 280, 282 
Scythrop, see dowry 
Seithenyn, 286-9 
Shantsee, Mr. Rumblesack, 

143 
Shelley, Harriett, 123, 150, 

202-5 
Shelley, Mary, 90, 150-52, 

205-6 
SHELLEY, P. B. 
and Palmyra, 49 
and Hookham, 57 
criticism by, 11 7- 11 8, 

243 
Peacock's acquaintance 
with, no, 1 15-16, 
1 17-19 
and Southey, 143-4 
in London, 118 
at Bracknell, 118 
in Edinburgh, 149 
at Bishopgate, 152 
in Headlong Hall, 157-9 
and Newton, 166 
at Marlow, 167, 194-5 
in Melincourt, 168-70, 

177, 180-181 
review of Rhododaphne, 

196 
departure from Eng- 
land, 126 



in Nightmare Abbey ^ 

197-201 
in Italy, 222-4 
death, 224 

in Gryll Grange^ 330-3^ 
Sir Hornbook, 137-8 
SirProtetis, 138-148, 162, 281 
Skionar, Mr., 146, 307-8 
Slavery, 181, 326 
Social Science Association, 

the, 326 
Socialism, 192 
Society for the Diffusion of 
Useful Knowledge, the, 
306 
Southey, Robert, 66, 71, 
139, 141, 142-3, 175, 
208-9, 280 
Spanish Literature, 324-5, 

334-5 
Steam Intellect Society, the, 

306 
Stella, 205-6 
Systema Naturae, 44 

TALIESIN, 290 
Three Doctors, the, 
129-30, 132-4 
Toobad, Mr., 210 
Toogood, Mr., 307 
Touchandgo, Miss Susan- 
nah, 93 
Traeth Mawr, 86 
Tremadoc, 86 

AMP, Mr., 181 

Virginia Water, 68 



V 



YJTT^ESTMINSTER 
t/Ty^ Review, the, 2S2' 
.^ 3 J 300 

Wilson, John, 146 
Wontsee, Mr. Wilful, 146 
Woolstonecraft, Mary, 206 
Wordsworth, William, €6, 
141, 146, 182, 280 



348 










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